Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost to the NHS is of maintaining an empty ward at Eltham Community Hospital; and if he will make a statement.

The ward at Eltham Community Hospital has only recently become vacant and it is not yet possible to provide a figure for the annual cost to the National Health Service. The clinical commissioning group (CCG) will be undertaking a full bed review in April which will look at bed distribution across the sites where they commission services. The CCG is also continuing to work through models of care that would be suitable for the empty ward at Eltham Community Hospital.