Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance he has issued or plans to issue to hospitals on ensuring adequate ventilation during the covid-19 outbreak; what standards are used to measure the adequacy of such ventilation, what enforcement activity he plans to undertake to ensure that such guidance is followed; and whether he plans to make funding available to improve standards of ventilation.

‘COVID-19: Guidance for maintaining services within health and care settings. Infection prevention and control recommendations Version 1.2’ was issued to ensure that risk assessments should include evaluation of ventilation to ensure maximum workplace risk mitigation. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/990923/20210602_Infection_Prevention_and_Control_Guidance_for_maintaining_services_with_H_and_C_settings__1_.pdf

‘Health Technical Memorandum 03-01 Specialised ventilation for healthcare premises. Part A: The concept, design, specification, installation and acceptance testing of healthcare ventilation systems’ gives comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation and operation of specialised building and engineering technology Health Technical Memorandum 03-01 Part A gives comprehensive advice that for other types of healthcare facility that are outside of the hospital setting such as general practitioner practices, a risk assessment of the nature of the treatment being delivered, condition of the patients and intensity of use needs to be undertaken by those responsible for the facility in order to determine the extent to which this guidance will be applicable. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HTM0301-PartA-accessible-F6.pdf

The Care Quality Commission is responsible for compliance with the Health Technical Memoranda under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (revised). There are no plans to allocate funding to improving ventilation standards or to make funding available to improve standards of ventilation.