Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the future capacity needs of acute hospitals.

National Health Service trusts have set operational plans, including their hospital bed capacity, for the first half of 2021/22 which take account of the current operating context, including the ongoing impact of infection prevention and control and social distancing and demand for future elective, non-elective and COVID-19 patient management. Decisions on NHS capacity will be kept under active review.