Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release of 15 August 2023 on £250 million to boost NHS capacity with 900 new beds, what baseline number was used to calculate the announcement of 5,000 additional beds as part of the permanent bed base for winter.

The number of National Health Service planned core general and acute beds in 2022/23 was 94,500. The 5,000 additional beds will take the core bed base to 99,500 this winter.