Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 7 October (HL8399), whether they will now answer the question put, namely, 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.

To maximise total elective activity, NHS England and NHS Improvement worked with independent providers to identify best of use of capacity, based on local need. From the end of March to June 2020 both equipment and staffing from independent sector providers were deployed by NHS trusts in order to ensure delivery of services for NHS patients. Since June, the use of independent sector sites has been focused on assisting the NHS to restore services and increase elective capacity.

As part of preparing for winter, the Government has provided an additional £3 billion to the NHS. This includes additional funding to the NHS to allow them to continue to use additional hospital capacity from the independent sector, and to maintain the Nightingale hospitals, in their current state, until the end of March 2021.