Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been paid to private hospitals to be on standby for use by the NHS for patients with covid-19 since March 2020.

National Health Service patients are benefitting from an unprecedented partnership with private hospitals as we battle the COVID-19 outbreak. The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector to secure all appropriate inpatient capacity and other resource across England.

It is currently not possible to estimate the cost to the public purse on how much has been paid to private hospitals to be on standby for use by the NHS for patients with COVID-19 since March 2020.