Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what procedures they put in place to ensure the maximum use of capacity between 1 April and 1 September in hospitals operated by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network under their partnership agreement with the NHS.

A national agreement is in place between NHS England and NHS Improvement in collaboration with the Independent Healthcare Providers Network and Independent Sector providers to ensure National Health Service patients benefit from an unprecedented partnership with private hospitals as we battle the COVID-19 outbreak. The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector to secure all appropriate inpatient capacity and other resource across England.

The addition of around 6,500 additional beds has increased NHS capacity and ensured that facilities are available for patients diagnosed with COVID-19 whilst ensuring continuity of service for non-COVID patients requiring elective activity, including cancer and other urgent treatment. Latest collected information shows that over 215,000 patient contacts had taken place under the contract.