Covid inquiry tells Treasury blocked request for 10,000 NHS beds

Boris Johnson's government blocked requests for funding for an additional 10,000 hospital beds at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the chief executive of NHS England has said.

Amanda Pritchard told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that the Treasury's decision in July 2020 was “very disappointing”.

She said the extra beds and staff would be used to reduce waiting lists for planned care and “build resilience” to a second wave of the winter pandemic.

The government said the investigation was ongoing and it could not comment.

The then health secretary is expected to give evidence later this month to the third part of the inquiry looking into the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the NHS and healthcare system.

Ms Pritchard served as chief operating officer of NHS England from 2019 until her promotion to chief executive in August 2021.

In her evidence, she said a request was made to the Government in July 2020 for an additional 10,000 permanent staffed hospital beds.

This need is based on the need to model the spread of the virus, as well as to deal with other pressures of the coming winter, and the need to resume more planned or elective surgeries and other treatments for non-COVID-19 patients.

But the Treasury and the Prime Minister's Private Office rejected the request, saying they wanted to make greater use of the temporary Nightingale hospital with the private sector, the inquiry heard.

Ms Pritchard was told the decision would be considered again as part of a wider spending review expected in autumn 2021.

She called the decision “hugely disappointing” and said waiting lists for planned NHS treatments in England would be in a “completely different position” today if additional funding was agreed.

Ms Pritchard said: “If we had that capacity we could certainly treat thousands more patients… and be more resilient going into the second wave of the pandemic and the wider winter. “

In summer 2020, the NHS in England had total permanent bed capacity to treat around 95,000 patients in acute hospitals.

That number will rise by a further 4,000 from winter 2023 under a recovery plan agreed by then chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Ms Pritchard later said in evidence that the health service faced a period of “extreme pressure” in the winter of 2020-21 as another wave of coronavirus spread across the country.

By then, new treatments had been discovered, including the cheap steroid dexamethasone, and the first COVID-19 vaccines were beginning to be rolled out in small quantities.

But the level of community transmission at the time meant some intensive care units were still being pushed “to the edge” and were “on the verge of running out of beds”.

Pritchard said that nationally, health services had never “systematically restricted” access to treatment because hospitals could not meet demand.

“But that doesn't mean staff in these locations aren't feeling completely overwhelmed at this time, or that the care being provided is the same as normal,” she added.

Ms Pritchard was also asked about the seven Nightingale temporary hospitals that were quickly built across England in March and April 2020 to treat coronavirus patients.

Figures uncovered by the inquiry show the total cost to the taxpayer, including installation and decommissioning, is currently estimated at £358.5 million.

Hospitals in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, London, Manchester and Sunderland treated 141 coronavirus patients in the first wave of the virus and 1,097 in the second wave and other patients.

A total of £50.4 million was spent on the Birmingham site, which has never been used by patients during the pandemic.

Bristol's website also assessed 6,554 patients at the city's eye hospitals.

Ms Pritchard told the inquest the scheme remained “useful” as the sites were conceived as “military field hospitals”.

“We think this is done to avoid a situation like that in northern Italy,” she said, referring to the situation in Lombardy, where intensive care units have been overwhelmed.