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 potential impact of changes in assumed bed occupancy levels on the (a) number of hospital beds and (b) cost of the New Hospitals Programme.

The New Hospital Programme (NHP) is currently working towards a 92% bed occupancy assumption for schemes that use our standardised approach to building new hospitals, Hospital 2.0.

The NHP is working jointly with all National Health Service trusts in the programme to develop and design the right sized hospitals based on robust assumptions appropriate for local population’s health needs and clinical strategies, including the number of beds.

In May 2023, it was announced that the NHP is expected to be backed by over £20 billion of investment, enabling the programme to provide indicative funding allocations for schemes.