Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to maximise NHS capacity and help increase the NHS’s resilience during the covid-19 outbreak.

The National Health Service is ensuring that all medically fit patients are discharged to increase bed capacity, using non-acute beds in local systems and the independent sector, and expanding the use of ‘virtual wards’ to care for patients safely at home. Nightingale hubs are also under construction to deliver up to an additional 4,000 beds, should they be needed.