Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) what instructions were given to NHS acute hospital trusts on, or around, 15 March about discharging patients to make beds available for COVID-19 patients; (2) how many beds in total the NHS in England was trying to make available; (3) which organisation issued the instructions; (4) following these instructions, (a) what proportion of patients were discharged to nursing or care homes, and (b) what proportion of those patients were tested for COVID-19 before discharge; and (5) what advance information and guidance was given to care homes about this mass discharge from acute hospitals.
Answered by Lord Bethell
On 19?March 2020, the Department and the National Health Service co-published COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Service Requirements,?setting out guidance on supporting the safe discharge of patients who no longer need acute care. A copy of this guidance is attached.
The guidance also sets out the steps that care providers should be taking and we provided £1.3 billion to support the process. We have provided advice to care homes throughout the pandemic in response to the latest conditions and emerging evidence.
The COVID-19 hospital discharge service requirements were expected to help free up 15,000 hospital beds across England.
On 2 June, NHS England published an analysis on discharges to care homes. This data was not previously available. The data showed that the proportion of people discharged to care homes, nursing homes and hospices between 15 March and 16 April was 2.8%.
A small number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 may be discharged from the NHS within the 14-day period from the onset of COVID-19 symptoms and also require ongoing social care. If a care home provider does not feel they can provide the appropriate care for these individuals, the individual’s local authority should secure alternative appropriate accommodation and care for the remainder of the required isolation period.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional critical care beds have been made available since the outbreak of covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It is the Government’s priority that the National Health Service has appropriate equipment to respond to Covid-19, this includes the provision of intensive care beds. The Department are working closely with the NHS England and the Devolved Administrations to ensure this.
NHS England routinely publishes information on Critical Care Bed Capacity which can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/critical-care-capacity/.
However, in response to Covid-19, some data collections have been suspended, which includes the one relating to Critical Care Bed Capacity. Further details can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/covid-19-and-the-production-of-statistics/.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether projected winter bed capacity in NHS hospitals is a criterion in determining the lockdown easement strategy.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The National Health Service currently has sufficient capacity to meet current demand.
A key priority for the Government is to continue to ensure that NHS capacity is able to meet demand, including for winter.
The NHS is planning to retain their demonstrated ability to quickly repurpose and ‘surge’ capacity locally and regionally, if and when it should be needed.
Asked by: Lord Rosser (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the maximum number of beds (1) available for use, and (2) used, by NHS patients in independent sector hospitals on any one day since the declaration of a Level 4 National incident on 30 January.
Answered by Lord Bethell
It is not possible to provide the data requested.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to build new hospitals to cope with any influx of COVID-19 patients.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government has taken a number of actions to ensure the National Health Service has sufficient hospital capacity to care for COVID-19 patients, including:
- in order to plan for reasonable worst-case scenarios, we have opened a number of Nightingale hospitals across England, which will provide thousands of extra beds if local services need them as a result of the virus;
- the NHS has created extra capacity of 33,000 additional beds freed up across NHS hospitals – the equivalent of building 50 district general hospitals - plus 8,000 beds through an unprecedented deal with the independent sector;
- in addition, since February the Government has been running a new capital facility to provide additional funding to NHS organisations, where needed for any urgent building works linked to the coronavirus response; and
- this is on top of the 40 new hospitals and 20 hospital upgrades the Government announced as part of the Health Infrastructure Plan – which we are continuing to deliver and committed to doing so as soon as possible.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to publish figures relating to people that have been discharged from hospital after recovering from covid-19; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data on the number of COVID-19 cases can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public
Cumulative case counts include patients who are currently unwell, those that have recovered and those that have died.
Public Health England is not currently publishing ‘patients recovered’ due to limitations in the quality of the data provided.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2020 to Question 33582 on Coronavirus: Hospital Beds, what estimate the Government has made of the cost to the public purse of reimbursing the independent sector.
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.
It is not possible at this time to provide an estimate of the cost to the public purse of reimbursing the independent sector.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) critical care beds have been used in intensive care units, and (2) intensive care units have experienced a shortage of critical care beds.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The number of critical care beds in use changes over time, particularly since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. NHS England’s published critical care beds data is attached. The latest data is February 2020 which provides the numbers of critical care beds available in England.
Since the last published figures, critical care capacity has been increased to ensure the National Health Service can provide effective and appropriate care to patients critically ill with COVID-19, while also keeping other critically ill patients safe from infection.
The NHS will be provided the resources it needs to keep the public safe at this time.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with private hospital operators on the use of private hospital beds by the NHS at no cost to the public purse in the event that additional capacity is required to treat patients with covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector to increase capacity and resource within the National Health Service, adding around 8,000 beds and 20,000 clinical staff. This will ensure that more facilities are available for patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
Under the agreement, the independent sector will be reimbursed at cost.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional critical care beds the NHS has made available in (a) the North West, (b) Liverpool City Region, (c) Merseyside and (d) Wirral since the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The National Health Service is scaling up the number of intensive care beds. There are currently 3,771 critical care beds in the NHS in England. As part of the readiness for the likely influx of more COVID-19 patients, the NHS is taking concerted action to free up to a third of its 100,000 general and acute beds.
In addition, NHS England has agreed a major deal with the nation’s independent hospitals. The deal – the first of its kind ever - includes the provision of 8,000 hospital beds across England and nearly 1,200 more ventilators.
A new temporary hospital - the NHS Nightingale hospital – will open at the Excel Centre in London next week. It will have capacity for 4,000 people.
Two new temporary hospitals will be set up at Birmingham's NEC and the Manchester conference centre and will be ready next month.
The NHS is making sure that not just overall hospital beds but particularly intensive care beds, operating theatres, recovery bays being repurposed, mechanical ventilation and other facilities across the hospital sector are expanded to the greatest possible extent so that the NHS can do all it possibly can.
Data on the number of critical care beds made available in the North West, Liverpool City Region, Merseyside and Wirral since the COVID-19 outbreak is not currently available.