Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the (a) level of use and (b) ward occupation rate of NHS hospitals in advance of new NHS hospitals being built; and if he will make a statement.

The NHS Long Term Plan sets out a number of reforms to the National Health Service’s capital regime to ensure capital funding is prioritised and allocated efficiently, supports the transformation of services and increased productivity, and allows for effective planning and control.

As part of their planning process, sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems would need to assess changing needs, additional activity and the new services that we envisage for the NHS in their future plans. The number of beds required in new NHS hospitals would be part of their service demand modelling and would need to be set out in their business case.