NO new coronavirus-related deaths have been recorded by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for the third day running.

The last death to be recorded at the trust, which runs Whiston, St Helens and Newton Hospitals, was on Saturday, when one death was included in the daily figures.

That death took place two days earlier on May 28.

Since the start of the outbreak, 194 people have died at the trust after testing positive for COVID-19.

The figures are updated every day by NHS England and NHS Improvement and include confirmed death cases reported at 5pm the previous day.

The figures provides information on all coronavirus-related (suspected and confirmed) deaths in England hospitals.

Cases are only included in the data when a positive COVID-19 test result is received, or where COVID-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on the death certificate.

This results in a lag between a given date of death and the daily death figures for that day as the deaths make their way through the system.

There is also often a lag over the weekend, meaning Monday’s figures tend to be lower before rising again on Tuesday.

However, in today’s figures, zero deaths were recorded by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Across the country, a further 143 people who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.

Patients were aged between 36 and 100 years old. Eight of the 143 patients, aged between 48 and 91, had no known underlying health condition.

In addition, 12 deaths were reported where there was no positive COVID-19 test result but where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

Today’s update brings the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 26,865.

The daily NHS figures do not include deaths outside hospital, such as those in care homes or in private homes.

NHS England and NHS Improvement do not publish recovery figures.

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has not published details on the number of discharged patients who had contracted coronavirus.