STAFF and residents in the city's care homes will receive regular coronavirus testing from today.

The new testing policy, which will see staff tested weekly for coronavirus with residents over the age of 65 tested every 28 days.

The new tests will also apply to younger patients suffering from dementia.

Care homes dealing with an outbreak, or increased risk of an outbreak, will be more intensively tested, the government said.

A total of 234 deaths in the whole of the county relating to coronavirus were registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) between March 6 and June 12, according to new government data.

Worcester has so far accounted for 12 per cent of all the coronavirus-related care home deaths in the county with the 68 care home deaths in Bromsgrove making it the worst hit followed by Wychavon with 52 deaths. Malvern saw 24 deaths.

The worst-hit week in Worcester’s care homes was between April 25 and May 1 where eight people died. The previous week saw seven deaths and the following week saw six deaths.

The three-week period at the end of April into early May saw almost 75% of the city’s care home deaths.

No coronavirus-related deaths were registered up to March 20, according to the figures.

A further breakdown of the figures show a total of 41 deaths were registered in the county between April 11 and 17 and 45 deaths were registered between April 17 and 23.

A total of 39 deaths were registered between April 24 and May 1and 33 more deaths were registered between May 2 and May 8.

The number of deaths dropped to eight between May 9 and May 15 but doubled the following week.