Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck has slapped down calls for him to resign despite 691 deaths in aged care since the start of the year.

During a fiery round of questioning at Senate estimates, Senator Colbeck said the number of deaths in aged care from the virus were not an indication of performance.

"We are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the completely tragic result of that is people will catch the virus across all parts of the community, and tragically, some will die," he told the hearing on Wednesday.

"The performance in managing COVID-19 has improved."