Four major 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 have been lined up to provide "surge capacity" if the virus spreads to Britain.
Experts say the UK is the third most likely country outside Africa to report an ebola case.
Details of the plan emerged as doctors 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, two of whom have now tested negative.
London's Royal Free Hospital - where nurse William Pooley was successfully treated after contracting the virus - is currently the UK's only specialist High Level Isolation Unit, with two containment beds.
Further specialist equipment would be transferred from the Royal Free to units in Sheffield, Newcastle and Liverpool in the event of a larger outbreak.
The NHS England operational update, issued in September, states: "A letter has now gone out to the chief executives of The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as part of a contingency plan to support national surge."
Ahead of today's meeting of the Government's COBRA contingencies committee, David Cameron spoke to the president of Sierra Leone, who said the situation in his country continues to be "very serious".
The British Army is sending more than 100 medics to the West African country to help tackle the crisis.
It comes as Public Health England said there were no plans to screen travellers from West Africa and chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies issued a high alert to all NHS staff.
It urged "every clinician in England" to take a full travel history of those who presented with a fever.
Dame Sally said: "It is unlikely but not impossible that people infected in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia could arrive in the UK while incubating the disease, and then develop symptoms after their return.
"Although the likelihood of imported cases is low, health care providers are reminded to remain vigilant."
Care minister Norman Lamb told Sky News the public health plan is sufficient and refused to be drawn on whether he agreed with Liberal Democrat colleague Norman Baker, who has suggested routine screening at UK airports.
In Spain, authorities said they had been in touch with a total of 22 people who are thought to have been in contact with the infected 40-year-old nurse, named by Spanish media as Teresa Romero.
She is being treated with a serum containing antibodies from another ebola patient.
Doctors are also monitoring around 30 other members of the team that treated one of two missionaries who died after returning to Spain from West Africa.
EU countries have demanded an explanation from Spain's health minister about how the nurse caught the disease, despite precautions.
World Health Organisation European director Zsuzsanna Jakab has warned 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.
Burial workers in Sierra Leone have reportedly gone on strike over pay, leaving bodies abandoned in the streets.
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