Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to (a) monitor the effect of the January 2021 covid-19 lockdown on NHS capacity and (b) include findings from that monitoring in decision-making on the (i) ending of and (ii) process of emergence from the lockdown.

National Health Service capacity is monitored by NHS England, while Public Health England publishes monitoring data on capacity at the following link:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

The Government will take a cautious approach to easing lockdown and will be guided by the data. Of the four tests to facilitate decision-making around the easing of lockdown, two relate to NHS capacity; evidence showing vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated; and evidence that infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.