Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current ventilator capacity in the NHS in England; and what is the expected ventilator capacity on (1) 1 June, (2) 1 July, (3) 1 August, and (4) 1 September.

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in March there were more than 8,000 mechanical ventilators in hospitals across the United Kingdom. As of 19 May, we now have around 13,000 mechanical ventilators available to the National Health Service. Over 1,800 of these have been provided by new suppliers responding to the Prime Minister’s ventilator challenge and almost 1,600 by established suppliers (with another almost 1,200 available from the private healthcare sector). In addition, there are also almost 8,000 non-invasive ventilators available to the NHS across the UK which were not available before mid-March.

These figures will continue to rise as we procure further equipment and more products from the Prime Minister’s ventilator challenge become available. Our expectation is that we will secure several thousands more in the coming weeks.