Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to increase the number of NHS hospital beds available in England.

The National Health Service operational planning guidance for 2020-21 sets out that systems and organisations will be expected to reduce general and acute bed occupancy levels to a maximum of 92%.

The operational assumption is that the peak of open bed capacity achieved through the winter of 2019/20 will be at least maintained through 2020/21, including the 3,000 bed increase from October 2019 already planned for.

Credible plans to release capacity through reductions in length of stay, improvements in delayed transfers of care, and admission avoidance programmes will be required where the increase is not above this level.