Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the National Health Service about sourcing additional beds for patients, including in non-hospital settings.

The Government is working in partnership with the health and care sector to ensure the supply of National Health Service beds matches demand during this unprecedented global emergency. For example, community health providers and social care providers have been asked to free up community hospital and intermediate care beds that could be used flexibly. These measures together could free up to 10,000 beds.

Other measures include the refitting and opening of seven Nightingale Hospitals in England in the next few weeks.

This extra capacity is on top of 33,000 additional beds freed up across NHS hospitals by postponing all non-urgent elective operations, urgently discharge all hospital in-patients who are medically fit to leave and block-buying capacity in independent hospitals.