Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Royal College of Emergency’s Medicine’s call to (1) restore bed capacity to pre-COVID levels, and (2) provide an additional 9,429 hospital beds, as set out in their letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 1 March.

We will continue to support the National Health Service in taking action to help reduce pressures on hospital bed capacity and increase patient flow through the emergency care pathway. This includes action within community services to help avoid unnecessary emergency admissions and the enhanced patient discharge arrangements which the NHS estimates has reduced long lengths of stay, increasing capacity to the equivalent of over 6,000 beds.