NHS chief executive gives press conference

Sir Simon Stevens announced the NHS would return to a level 4 incident…

At the national press conference today, during which he answered questions from the press, he spoke about the continued pressures on the health service during the pandemic.

He said the number of cases nationally had jumped from 500 in early September to 2,000 by October and this figure was now 11,000 – enough to fill 22 hospitals.

He also said the NHS needed to be ready should a vaccine become available, and preparations were already well underway.

A series of data slides were also shown during the press conference focusing on how the virus takes hold.

You can still watch the full press conference which was originally broadcast on Twitter.