Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to track the number of patients who tested negative for COVID-19 on admission to hospital in England but then contracted COVID-19 whilst in hospital.

NHS England and NHS Improvement collect and publish data relating to the numbers of patients diagnosed in the community with COVID-19 and subsequently admitted to hospital or admitted to hospital and diagnosed with COVID-19 within eight days of admission. However, due to the incubation period of the virus and local differences in application of testing protocols, it is not possible to definitively determine how many of these patients contracted the virus whilst in hospital.