Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many operations and treatments are being sent to private sector hospitals under NHS contracts as non-covid-19 work resumes in England.

The information is not held in the format requested.

National Health Service patients are benefitting from an unprecedented partnership with private hospitals in the United Kingdom as we battle the COVID-19 outbreak. The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector to secure all appropriate inpatient capacity and other resource across England. This has increased NHS capacity and ensured that more facilities are available for patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

Throughout this period, independent providers have continued to provide urgent operations for NHS patients, as well as their private pay or insured patients.

As part of preparing for winter, the Government has provided an additional £3 billion to the NHS. This will allow the NHS to continue to use the extra hospital capacity acquired from the independent sector and also to maintain the Nightingale hospitals until the end of March.