India’s health ministry has exhorted the private healthcare sector to “ensure seamless admissions” of patients with coronavirus amid rising demand for hospital beds and concerns that some patients are not referred to hospitals early enough.

Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in a virtual conclave with senior executives and doctors from private hospitals, iterated the need for medics across the country to comply with national clinical treatment protocols, share their best practices to provide timely treatment to patients.

Bhushan, the health ministry said on Saturday, also emphasised the need to ensure that patients are not denied beds and the need to follow evidence-based treatment and reduce “heterogeneity” — another word for diversity — in clinical practices in the management of Covid-19 patients.

The ministry’s conclave with private hospitals comes amid a near-steady increase in the need for hospital beds for Covid-19 patients with the rise in the number of “active” patients under medical supervision — from about 831,000 a week ago to 958,316 on Saturday.

The average daily increase in patients under medical supervision has been around 20,000 over the past three days. While the vast majority of these new diagnosed patients with no symptoms or mild symptoms would be placed under home isolation and observation, doctors say, the increase would translate into higher hospital bed demand.

If five per cent new patients need hospital care, for 20,000 patients, India would need 1,000 hospital beds.

The Centre has urged states to ensure that patients at home are properly monitored for any signs of deteriorating disease so that they can be moved to hospitals early but, some doctors say, anecdotal accounts suggest that many patients are avoiding early hospital admissions.

“We’re concerned about this,” said Alok Ray, chairperson of the Medica hospital group and head of the health services panel of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry who joined the conclave. “Many patients under home isolation seek consultations from nursing homes or general practitioners and even ask for oxygen at home.”

Ray said such practices are contributing to delays in treatment. The treatment protocols developed by experts at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and other institutions recommend patients under home isolation to be immediately shifted to hospitals if their oxygen levels fall below a threshold level or if they develop breathlessness.

In a separate meeting on Saturday, P.K. Mishra, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, chaired a meeting on India’s Covid-19 response that discussed the need for “district action plans” and a “behaviour change” campaign to ensure that people do not lower guard under the “unlock” conditions.

During the meeting, Vinod Paul, member of Niti Aayog, the government’s top think tank, made a detailed presentation on projections of cases based on different models, the health ministry said in a media release.

Principal secretary Mishra directed officials to work out detailed action plans for the coming months. The meeting also discussed the need for augmenting human resources, ensuring uninterrupted oxygen and other medical supplies, and getting the right mix of testing for effective case management, contact tracing and isolation.

The meeting recommended the need for a concerted behaviour change campaign that needs to be taken up to prevent people from lowering their guard from personal precautions against the infection under the unlock phase.

India on Saturday recorded 97,570 new Covid-19 cases, a fresh highest-ever single day rise, increasing the total number of infections to over 4.65 million of whom 3.62 million have recovered, 958,316 patients are under medical supervision and 77,472 have died, including 1,201 deaths over the previous 24 hours.