Piers Morgan slams Care Minister Helen Whately who 'doesn't know' how many have died in care homes

Care Minister Helen Whately was slammed by Piers Morgan today as she admitted she didn't know how many people had died in care homes from coronavirus.

The minister had a car crash interview on GMB last week, as she laughed at the start of the interview as Piers held up a newspaper with a headline that estimated 4,000 deaths.

Today the minister faced a similar grilling from Piers as he asked her how many people had died in care homes.

She replied: "We know that 17,000 have died in hospital, and the Office for National Statistics told us yesterday there was 1043 deaths in care homes.

"We know that more people have died in care homes and next week we hope to be able to publish those figures.

"The date we have is inaccurate and misleading, so we're starting to change the way we collect that data."

Piers jumped in and said: "The Financial Times says it is over 41,000."

Ms Whately said: "That is not a figure I recognise, that shows the inaccuracy of data."

Care Minister Helen Whately (ITV)

But Piers became incensed and raged: "You still don't know these numbers, when will you have an answer?

"It's your job to know this, I find it insulting the Care Minister has no idea how many people have died in care homes.

Ms Whately replied: "I take every single death seriously, this is a horrid virus, know that those in care homes are very vulnerable .

"We know people are dying in care homes, we know more people than usual are dying in care homes."

Piers then interrupted again and the pair argued while talking over each other, before turning to the amount of NHS and care staff that had passed away from coronavirus.

The pictures of NHS and care staff who have passed away from coronavirus (ITV)

Ms Whately said: "We know that 61 NHS staff and 15 care workers have lost their lives."

Piers said: "These numbers again are wrong, we know of 111 staff that have died." and turned to a graphic featuring photos of those who had died.

Ms Whately said: "We don't want to mislead people."

But Piers jumped in again and said: "I'll tell you whats misleading is when you tell us we have 17,000 deaths when its likely over 40,000."

*GMB continues at 6am on ITV tomorrow