But how well has the health has been preparing for a potential pandemic?

We've been looking into claims that for years the government has no heeded warnings about the lack of ventilators and intensive care equipment, our health and social care correspondent Victoria McDonald reports.

The warnings were there almost from the beginning, pictures from China showing patients needing intensive care and ventilation.

Then we saw what was happening in Italy.

Different hospitals, same scenario.

The U.

K couldn't say that.

It wasn't warned that more equipment, more staff Maur ventilators were going to be needed for covered 19 patients, a disease that can cause a type of pneumonia.

Tonight, this letter has gone out from N Hs, England, to a ll trust, saying that they must postpone all routine operations from April the 15th for three months, that they must find maximum capacity and critical care and inpatient beds and staff.

And, they said, prepare for and respond to the anticipated large numbers of covered 19 patients who will need respiratory support.

But is this all too much of a scramble.

Should the health service have been better prepared medical star for reporting that there is not enough protection equipment, including masks and gowns.

We we need to know that in the next few days that enough will be supplied that it may in it mean they have to start manufacturing it from scratch.

But we need to know that it's happening so that we're not suddenly foreign short of the amount we need.

Even with the n hs flexing up what's known as peak surge capacity, the maximum number of icy you beds is approximately 5000.

Scientific modeling released yesterday by Imperial College, London showed that if one person infects 2.4 others, then in the do nothing scenario, you will need 180,000 icy you beds at the peak.

So the new measures social distancing, home quarantine.

They aim to bring that down.

But even then, as many as 11,000 beds will still be needed, and that remains well over capacity through viruses can spread if you don't catch your coughs or sneezes.

Hygienically.

The last epidemic the government was confronted with was the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

This pandemic flu report says the potential number of referrals to critical care is likely to exceed bed availability and that during the peak of a pandemic that maybe 10 times as many patients requiring mechanical ventilatory support is the number of beds available.

Individual n HS trusts also flagged up the glaring shortage of ventilators.

Raw Cornwall hospitals, N hs trusts pandemic influenza plan, for example, stated the demand, particularly for ventilation, is likely to exceed available resources.

It is 2020.

The pandemic is here, and it's clear now that there are still not enough ventilators.

We really only have a few weeks to build.

Literally thousands of ventilators at this country will need the intensive care, Society says.

More could have been done in the past decade.

They haven't increased critical care beds despite increased demand, they said.

Equipment could have been kept in storage, and above all, there is a need form or staff.

Today, the N.

H.

S is running a stress test to see how it will cope, and nobody is in any doubt that the staff will pull out all the stops.

But when this is over, the question will still remain.

Could Maur have been done earlier?

Victoria McDonald reporting Now, a short time ago, I spoke again to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is now chair of the Health Select Committee.

I started by asking him if he was satisfied that there will be enough ventilators to tackle the virus.

It was very clear listening to society in Stevens that they are still very worried.

They may not have enough ventilators, but the measures that were introduced yesterday do have a chance off reducing the peak pressure on the N HS to within the number of intensive care beds that they think they will have now see, we don't know.

We don't know how much the public will go along with what's being requested.

How much older people will take the advice to cut down on social interactions were asking a lot off a big chunk of the population.

If people cooperate with that, then we have, ah, a chance that the N hs will be able to cope, but it is only a chance.

We've been looking into the whole ventilator issue and it seems this rather vital equipment in the event of any great a threat to health across the nation has been gravely short supply in the development health for a long, long time.

Were you aware of it when you were secretary of State?

I wasn't, actually.

But, you know, we did a lot of pandemic planning on dhe.

I think it is true that we all woke up to this very, very late because this'll virus struck us from from nowhere at the beginning of this year.

But I think a lot is happening on ventilators, but I think the message is that we can't let up because there's still a possibility that this is going to it's not gonna be possible to suppress the virus.

The strategy now is to do what they've done in South Korea and Taiwan to try and avoid a kind of northern Italy style meltdown.

When we spoke to last week, you were pretty critical of various aspects of what was happening.

Are you Maura piece tonight?

Well, I'm more comfortable with the overall strategy, you know, they're basically there was a choice between allowing this virus to essentially take hold with the healthy part of the population and trying to shield theme or address part of the population that the herd immunity approach, which we were really was actually the only country in the world that was thinking down those lines on.

I was worried about that.

We're now following the suppression route, which I think is better.

But if I have to concerns now, I think the first is that if we're going to be successful in suppressing the virus, we need to have a South Korean approach to testing.

We need to be testing absolutely everyone who is a potential suspect in terms of having the virus so we can isolate them, treat them.

We're a long way away from being able to do that, so we need a huge effort on that on the second big concern I have is protecting doctors nurses on the front line.

There are clearly massive problems with that.

You were close to becoming Prime Minister yourself.

Would you have handled things differently?

I think the government is doing the right thing now.

I don't think it's right for me to try and second guess what they should do, given that I'm not seeing all the scientific advice that they're seeing, there are countries that appear to have turned the tide on.

They were taking a very different approach to us last week.

Now what we're being told is that we're taking the same approach on.

I think that's very, very encouraging.

Jeremy Hunt, Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

Thank you, John.

And in his evidence to M.

P's Earlier, the government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Violence, said it would be sensible for people with Corona virus to take paracetamol instead of I pooh bear friend.

After concerns that anti inflammatory drugs could make condition worse, it's updated advice.

The N.

H s says that there is currently no strong invent and evidence that I put bluefin can make the Barrys worst, but says, until we have more information, take paracetamol to treat the symptoms unless your doctor has told you it is not suitable for you.

Across the UK, hospitals are desperately trying to increase capacity in the intensive care units to cope with patients requiring ventilation.

The front line of the virus pandemic.

Our home affairs correspondent Andy Davis, is in method civil tonight on Andy.

You spent the day with staff at a hospital.

There you feel isn't on that well, Kathy, what you're about to see, I think, is a rare glimpse into what's actually going on behind the scenes in many intensive care units around the UK right now.

And it involves a huge amount of work in a health care system which is being rapidly reshaped in the shadow of this virus.

Prince Charles Hospital here is part of the come tired of organic University Health Board in their conditions today will be only too aware that there has been a second confirmed Corona virus death in Wales.

Over at the hospital in Swansea.

They will have seen the Welsh health minister compelled to self isolate after his son developed a cough.

They will be only too aware.

Also, of all the modeling which has been suggesting that critical care units around the UK could be overwhelmed in the months to come on, they know it is only a matter of time before they are admitting some very sick patients here infected with Corona virus.

This is how one intensive care unit around the UK is preparing amidst this escalating outbreak.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify what we're doing with P p E equipment in event of a patient with a cardiac arrest.

It is yet another Corona virus briefing in yet another operating theater now being emptied for new intensive care beds.

This guidance is if you've got two suspected or confirmed covert case which will be down on the CDU, the clinical decision unit and you're doing an aerosol generating procedure.

You wear the full PPV Galia so that include the F B three mask.

You need to make sure you've got a nice tight seal on the bottom in another room.

It's a briefing on Corona virus protective equipment to get that nice tight seal to the right of us.

Here is the clinical decision units.

This is Dave Jones, a consultant in intensive care medicine in Merthyr Tydfil and where he now takes us a journey.

Many others infected by Corona virus will surely follow in the weeks and months ahead.

So this is now your new intensive care unit specifically for Corona virus specifically for Corona virus cases.

The Prince Charles Hospital normally has just eight critical care beds.

They're rapidly creating 14 more.

So what we have to do is convert Excuse me, everybody a bringing up all the equipment to make this into an intensive care unit were shown an operating theatre with no table, an anesthetic machine turned extra ventilator.

In the days since the Welsh government canceled all non urgent operations this whole day, Surgery Wing is now being co opted for Corona virus Critical care and they want to be ready for tomorrow.

When you've seen I heard the accounts coming out of hospitals, critical care units in Italy, you must be imagining that sent the same could happen here we are preparing ourselves for every eventuality.

The bottom line that I'm telling toe alot staff is that we need to be able to look back on this in 12 months time and say that we've done our best with the resources available with the knowledge we have at the time.

This is a critical care department like so many others around the UK right now, mobilizing at speed for what comes next.

A sense of urgency clear from the sheer numbers of staff being deployed and trained up for units like this.

Around 100 were being trained here today to take on critical care rolls the niece that is scrub nurses in recovery star for here advised on intubation skills for Corona virus patients.

Others a brief quietly in the corridor.

You're fulfilling a fundamental role, right?

Yeah, you know, it's our job.

At the end of the day, we come to look after patients.

We still have to look after each other.

That's all we can do at the end of the day for people.

How proud of you to be on N hs facts at this time extremely plant your family worried about the role you're going to be playing?

Yes, obviously, you know, But I just think that I committed a majestic A for patients.

That's my first and most former strong will, and that's what I'll be doing.

Just had confirmation from Echo on cardiology.

We've got 24 hour echo service for our patients here.

Gratitude for insights shared by counterparts in China in Italy is laced with an acknowledgement of the enormity of the tasks and hugely difficult decisions ahead.

The preparations isn't just shifting the ventilators from downstairs to upstairs.

Part of the preparations is going to be the psychological preparation for what is to come because we don't want the staff we don't want.

I don't want my colleagues to be thrown in the deep end off making these decisions alone on DSO like counterparts elsewhere in the UK, in China, in France, in Italy they step forward, the health care workers upon whom so much now depends to deal with the public health emergency the like of which no one has seen before.