Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's guidance is on allowing hospital patients to be treated on the same ward as patients who have received a positive covid-19 test.

‘COVID-19: infection prevention and control (IPC)’ is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-infection-prevention-and-control

This guidance sets out that in general, patients with COVID-19 who are admitted to hospital will have more severe disease than those who can remain in the community. Whilst in hospital patients should remain in isolation or a cohort with transmission-based precautions applied for at least 14 days after onset of symptoms.