Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cases of covid-19 have been diagnosed in care homes in the last week.

This information is not held in the format requested.

However, the most recent data available for the week ending 9 March 2022 shows that 667,051 lateral flow device (LFD) tests were conducted among care home staff and 9,075 returned positive; 58,129 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were conducted among care home staff and 2,438 returned positive; 27,590 LFD tests were conducted among care home residents and 1,917 returned positive; and 87,363 PCR tests were conducted among care home staff and 4,193 returned positive.

It should be noted that this data refers to tests reported and therefore could include multiple positive tests for the same individual.