Government explains why coronavirus ‘will get worse before it gets better’ in the UK

Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said community transmission "may have decreased" although it will take "a few weeks to feed through to hospital admissions".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The next few weeks, because of the lag, will likely get worse before they get better, but we, as citizens, as individuals, all we can do is to continue to adhere to that advice as much as we possibly can.

"And in doing so help to reduce social contact, help to protect the NHS, and then we may start to see, we hope we will see significant improvements flowing through in the next week or two."

Mr Jenrick, pressed about supplies and the cost of personal protective equipment to care homes, said 170 million items have been delivered to 58,000 "different settings" including care homes, hospital trusts and GP surgeries.

He added: "But there are settings that I know of who have either not received the equipment that they need or who are concerned that their stocks are running low and our task is to get the materials out to those people now."

In response to criticism that there has been a lack of preparation for the amount of testing and ventilators which are needed, Mr Jenrick told Good Morning Britain: "On each of these fronts there is a lot to do.

"I am not pretending that this is going to be easy but we have been increasing production of each of those items.

"On PPE (personal protective equipment), I acknowledge that those on the front line have faced a very unsatisfactory situation in some cases where they haven't had the specific supplies they need or the reassurance that they will be available in just a couple of days' time because stocks were reducing in the healthcare setting in which they work."

He said supplies are increasing and that with PPE "the task now is one of getting supplies to the front line".