Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department collects on the length of time covid-19 patients spend in (a) regular and (b) intensive care hospital beds.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the current capacity is of hospitals in England to treat covid-19 patients; and if he will set out the evidence which shows that hospitals would run out of that capacity by the end of November 2020 on present trends of the spread of covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The publication of weekly bed availability, including critical care beds, and occupancy for winter 2020/21 has recently been started and the data can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/uec-sitrep/
An assessment of projected increases in COVID-19 cases and National Health Service bed availability was set out ahead of new national measures introduced from 5 November. This information can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bed capacity in NHS hospitals during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
An assessment of projected increases in COVID-19 cases and National Health Service bed availability was set out ahead of new national measures introduced from 5 November. This information can be found at the following link:
The publication of weekly bed availability and occupancy, including critical care beds, for winter 2020/21 has recently been started and the data for the first collection, from 2-8 November 2020 and is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/uec-sitrep/
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the (a) total number of beds available to the NHS and (b) number of beds occupied by covid-19 patients as at 9 November 2020.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information on the total number of National Health Service beds is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government in what format data on bed occupancy in NHS Nightingale Hospitals is held.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England publishes a ‘COVID-19 Hospital Activity’ dataset which includes the number of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 as well as beds occupied by patients with COVID-19, both at provider level only. Data specifically for the Nightingale hospitals is not held.
The Nightingale hospitals in London and the North West have been placed on standby.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the capacity of beds that are fully staffed, funded and available for use by patients in each of the Nightingale hospitals in England; what have been the occupancy levels of these hospitals since their opening; and how many (1) doctors, and (2) nurses, are currently employed in each of these hospitals.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The available capacity and staffing of the Nightingale hospitals is decided locally by National Health Service trusts and varies over time based on demand. At present, the Nightingale hospitals are on standby but are ready to be stood up if needed. The continued future use of the Nightingale hospitals is currently under consideration.
The Government has stated that the NHS will get what it needs in terms of funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of patients admitted to each of the Nightingale Hospitals is not available in the format requested. Admission data for COVID-19 patients is published online by NHS England and NHS Improvement at trust level but not for individual hospitals.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many private hospital beds have been used since the start of the covid-19 outbreak; and what the cost is of each of those beds per night.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
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 NHS is accessing these facilities at cost, with those costs judged by an independent auditor. Reimbursements to the independent sector will be for reasonable and narrowly-defined costs only.
The latest collected information shows that over 215,000 patient contacts had taken place under the contract. As lockdown eases and elective activity starts to resume utilisation of the contract is increasing. It is currently not possible to estimate the cost to the public purse.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the remarks made by the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP on 12 June that “whilst the impact of such discharges meant the NHS was never short of beds or ventilators, it seems extraordinary that no one appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically.”
Answered by Lord Bethell
Throughout our coronavirus response we have kept our policies under continuous review based on the emerging international and domestic evidence and have worked tirelessly with the care sector and public health experts to reduce transmission and save lives.
On 15 April, we published COVID-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care. This set out that all patients are required to be tested prior to discharge to a care home. A copy is attached.
Patients are discharged when it is clinically safe and they no longer need acute care. Wherever possible, people who are clinically ready should be supported to return to their place of residence, where assessment of longer-term needs will take place. This approach follows the ‘discharge to assess’ model, to support timely and appropriate discharge from hospital.
As our understanding of the virus has changes throughout the course of the pandemic, we have continued to develop our policy. Our current policy is that due to evidence of asymptomatic spread, during periods of sustained transmission we recommend that all residents being discharged from hospital or interim care facilities to the care home and new residents admitted from the community should be isolated for 14 days within their own room. For care home residents, around 70% of people living in care homes for the over 65s have dementia. It is important they return to their familiar environments when they are clinically ready, with the personalised support and daily activities in place that help them to live well with dementia. This can be better achieved in their care home, rather than the hospital.
We have made £1.3 billion funding available via the National Health Service to help patients who no longer need urgent treatment to get home from hospital safely and quickly. We have also made £3.2 billion available to local authorities so they can address pressures on local services caused by the pandemic, including in adult social care. On 13 May we announced an additional £600 million to support care home providers through a new Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any relationship between spare bed capacity in the NHS and deaths from COVID-19 in care homes and the community.
Answered by Lord Bethell
To date, we have not undertaken an assessment of the relationship between spare bed capacity in the National Health Service and deaths from COVID-19 in care homes and the community. The safety of residents and staff is always a priority and patients should not be discharged unless it is clinically safe to do so.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase NHS hospital capacity to manage the projected increase in patients with covid-19 during autumn 2020 and winter 2020-21.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The possibility of a second surge in COVID-19 cases means that we cannot afford to relax our commitment to provide whatever the National Health Service needs to tackle COVID-19. We continue to work closely with the NHS and partners on the capacity needed for the next period and guidance has already been issued to the NHS on the process of starting to restore urgent non-COVID-19 services in a safe way, whilst ensuring surge capacity can be stood up again should it be needed.