Half of people who were in hospital in Cornwall and Devon having tested positive for Covid-19 were admitted for other reasons in the latest figures.

The monthly NHS trusts situation report, which was published on Thursday but only covers up until October 1, showed six patients were in hospital across the two counties at that time.

But only three of the admissions were because of Covid-19, and the other three were diagnosed once they were in the hospital – either because they were infected within the hospital, or because they were admitted for a different reason unrelated to Covid-19, but unknowingly also had coronavirus when they were tested.

The October 1 figures by NHS Trust showed at that time there was one person in in the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, one person in Torbay Hospital, one person in the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, and three people in Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. One of those three people in Derriford subsequently died on October 2.

The data also showed that of Devon and Cornwall’s six NHS Trusts, all bar one of them on October 1 had seen the number of people in hospital decrease from earlier in September.

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust hospitals had one patient on September 20, compared to zero on October 1, and the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust hospitals had one patient on October 1, although this was the highest figure it had seen in the previous month.

As of October 1, there were 36 people in hospital in the south west as a whole. By October 8 that figure has risen to 66, and while hospitalisations are likely to have risen since, the NHS England data only covers the period up until October 1, and won’t be updated to detail October’s figures until November 12.