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

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

Data seen by the inquiry shows the total cost to the taxpayer, including setting up and decommissioning, is now estimated at £358.5m.

The hospitals – in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, London, Manchester and Sunderland – treated 141 Covid patients in the first wave of the virus and 1,097 Covid and other patients in the second wave.

In total, £50.4 m was spent on one site, Birmingham, which was never used by patients in the pandemic.

The site in Bristol also carried out 6,554 assessments for patients from the eye hospital in the city.

Ms Pritchard told the inquiry the programme had still been “useful”, as the sites had been envisaged as “military field hospitals” at the time.

“We thought we were doing it to avoid a northern Italy situation,” she said, referring to scenes in Lombardy, where intensive-care units had been overwhelmed.