Four major NHS hospitals are on standby to deal with a UK ebola outbreak as David Cameron prepares to chair an emergency meeting on the threat posed by the deadly virus.
The hospitals already have infectious disease units and according to the latest guidance from NHS England officials they have been lined up to provide "surge capacity" if the virus spreads to Britain.
Details of the contingency plans emerged as medics in Spain continued to treat a nurse who became the first person outside Africa to contract ebola - with another four people quarantined in a Madrid hospital over fears they could have been infected.
London's Royal Free Hospital, where nurse William Pooley was successfully treated after contracting the virus in Sierra Leone, is currently the UK's only specialist High Level Isolation Unit, with two containment beds.
The news comes as British Prime Minister, David Cameron, prepares to chair a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee about Ebola later.
Ahead of today's meeting, Cameron spoke to the president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, who said the situation in his country continues to be "very serious".
Downing Street stressed that the COBRA meeting in Whitehall was one of a regular series of meetings and had been in the PM's diary for some time.
The World Health Organisation's European director Zsuzsanna Jakab has warned that some further infections in Europe are "unavoidable".
More than 3,400 people have died in the latest ebola outbreak, which has swept through West African countries Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
One of the scientists who first identified Ebola almost 40 years ago, Professor Peter Piot, says in order to combat it, experts must share information:
