Recommendation 25

Between mid-March and mid-April, the NHS and armed forces are to be commended for increasing the number of beds available for Covid-19 patients from 12,600 to 53,700 in 63 C&AG’s Report, para 3.16 64 RSC0012 National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Merging and Zoonotic Infections; University of Liverpool, Institute of Infection and Global Health, and University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences submission; RSC0010 NHS Confederation submission; RSC0004 NHS Providers submission; RSC0005 Association of Anaesthetics submission 65 Qq 98–101 66 Qq 102–105, 108–111; C&AG’s Report, para 4.30; RSC0010 NHS Confederation submission; RSC0004 NHS Providers submission 67 Q 57 68 Qq 102, 105, 111 69 Qq 14,109, 116 70 RSC0004 NHS Providers submission 71 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 2.6, 2.7, 4.4; Ev Independent Healthcare Providers Network submission Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak 17 a very short space of time. The additional capacity inside existing NHS hospitals helped to ensure that at no point during the pandemic did the number of patients exceed the number of available beds.72 Independent and Nightingale capacity created a ‘buffer’ on top of that, and NHS Providers also welcomed the private sector support which had been offered to date.73 We recognise the need to have moved at speed to set up these arrangements. However, we were also concerned about the trade-offs with securing value for money and an apparent lack of transparency. We asked NHSE&I about the use and cost of the capacity secured through independent hospitals. NHSE&I told us that “several hundred thousand patient treatments”, such as chemotherapy and diagnostic tests, had been delivered as well as equipment. Despite the open book accounting arrangements in the contract, NHSE&I would not provide even a rough estimate of costs until these had been audited and said it might be “several weeks” before it could share the data with u