Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that a triage tool has been used to deny elderly patients access to intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic; and what guidance, if any, they circulated to hospitals about the use of any such tool.

Claims that frail and elderly patients were denied care in wave one of the coronavirus pandemic, in part because of a triage tool which was developed for use if the National Health Service was overwhelmed, are categorically untrue. Guidance to help clinicians make rational, evidence-based decisions in the event of intensive care units being overwhelmed was commissioned by NHS England’s National Medical Director and the four United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers but work was halted when it became clear the NHS would not be overwhelmed.