Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the availability of oxygen to hospital trusts in (a) London and (b) England; and what contingency plans are in place to mitigate low oxygen supplies in hospital trusts.
The National Health Service has enough oxygen supplies to meet current demand in London and will continue to work with suppliers to manage any future needs. In England the supply chain has significant capacity to meet large surges in demand and delivery of oxygen to hospital tanks is not a limiting factor. There is no national shortage of oxygen.
NHS hospitals are carefully managing their oxygen flow and infrastructure to manage the current need and have deployed a number of contingency measures such as improved monitoring and maintenance of their oxygen systems to ensure they are operating at maximum efficiency. Before the winter, over 30 upgrade projects were completed to improve the long term oxygen and medical supply infrastructure within hospitals. The NHS has invested £15 million to date and further improvements continue to be carried out.