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 (a) reduce infection rates in areas experiencing comparatively high occupancy rates of hospital beds from people with covid-19 and (b) provide additional support to those areas in order to prevent delay to patients who require hospital interventions.

The UK Health Security Agency and NHS England and NHS Improvement provide guidance on infection prevention and control measures to reduce COVID-19 infection rates in hospital settings. This includes physical distancing, such as between beds on a ward, more intensive cleaning and reorganising hospitals into different zones. The latest advice recommends that these measures are managed according to local needs. National Health Service hospitals are being supported to safely increase capacity and prevent delays to patients requiring hospital interventions. This includes the use of ‘virtual wards’ and ‘hospital at home’ models of care, allowing for patients to be safely cared for in their own homes; using non-acute beds in the community including those in the independent sector; and establishing a new national discharge taskforce to safely maximise patient discharge and increase bed capacity.