More than 8,700 people died after catching Covid while in hospital being treated for something else, it has been reported.
The figures, provided by dozens of hospitals, were reportedly described as “horrifying” by relatives of those who died.
They showed that 32,307 people have probably or definitely contracted the disease while being at hospital since March last year.
Of these 8,747 of them were said to have died.
The figures represent nearly three in 10 (27.1%) of those infected losing their lives within 28 days.
It comes after recent research revealed that up to four in 10 coronavirus infections during the first wave could have caught the virus while in hospital.
According to The Guardian the latest figures were obtained under Freedom of Information [FoI] laws from 81 of England’s 126 acute hospital trusts.
Ex-health secretary Jeremy Hunt was reported to have said that hospital-acquired Covid 'remains one of the silent scandals of this pandemic, causing many thousands of avoidable deaths.'
He said: “The NHS has done us all proud over the past year, but these new figures are devastating and pose challenging questions on whether the right hospital infection controls were in place."
From the FoI responses, University Hospitals Birmingham trust reportedly had the highest number of deaths (408), after Nottingham University Hospitals (279) and Frimley Health (259).
Nine trusts were said to have had 200 or more deaths.
At a number of trusts, about a third of people who died after catching Covid were infected in hospital, including at Royal Cornwall hospitals (36%), Salisbury (35.2%) and Kettering (31.2%).
45 trusts reportedly refused to disclose their death figures.
The publication said that the 8,747 who died were all in hospital for another medical reason, such as treatment for a fall, flare-up of a serious illness, or an operation.
The figures were said to have included people who died in hospital and after their discharge.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK campaign were reported to have said the mortality rate for patients and staff infected in hospitals was 'horrifying.'
They are calling on ministers to act before another wave, driven by the India variant that is spreading through the country.
An NHS spokesperson said: “The Office for National Statistics and other data conclusively demonstrate that the root cause of rising infection rates in hospitals is rising rates in the community and throughout the pandemic weekly reports from Public Health England have consistently shown that outbreaks in hospitals are less common than in other settings.”
Hospitals’ “robust infection control measures” include treating Covid and non-Covid patients in separate areas and testing all inpatients on admission and twice in their first week, the spokesperson added.
