New plans for care homes could allow relatives to visit their families under "extreme circumstances".
Boris Johnson said the Government is looking to review restrictions in care homes to allow people to visit their families.
The Prime Minister responded to a question from a member of the public during his latest press briefing at Downing Street.
Vicky, from Lancashire, explained that she had only seen her grandmother once since March when the initial lockdown restrictions came in.
Responding, Boris Johnson said: "We do have to prevent the spread of the virus in care homes; you'll remember what happened in the early part of the year, so we have had to take some steps to protect elderly residents from the possibility of infection by visitors.
"But we are certainly looking at what we can do to review the circumstances that might allow people to visit their elderly relatives in extreme circumstances and on compassionate grounds."
Deputy chief medical officer for England Professor Jonathan Van-Tam added: "This is really extremely distressing, for relatives and for people living in care homes.
"But the unfortunate and horrible truth about this virus is that when it gets into care homes it can inflict really massive mortality very quickly."
On testing in care homes, he said: "I'm hoping that some of the pilots, with rapid and novel testing methods, will eventually lead to a breakthrough so that we can be more relaxed about visiting residents and our families in care homes in a much safer way.
"For now it is a very difficult situation."
As of Tuesday a further 241 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 bringing the UK total to 43,967, according to Government figures.
This is the highest daily statistic since 258 deaths were reported on June 5 - but there is often a delay in the reporting of deaths over the weekend.
Deputy chief medical officer for England Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said he expected the upward trend in coronavirus deaths to continue to climb.
Separate figures published by statistics agencies show there have now been 59,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
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The Government also said that, as of 9am on Tuesday, there had been a further 21,330 lab-confirmed cases in the UK, bringing the total to 762,542, with the R rate between 1.2 and 1.4.
Commenting on the latest rise in reported deaths, Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, said: "The trend in deaths is rising sharply.
"Tragically we know that older people and those with underlying health conditions tend to suffer more if they become unwell.
"We all have a responsibility to follow the restrictions to help stop the virus spreading to those who are at greater risk."
