The armed forces are set to dramatically reduce the number of personnel in their “COVID Support Force”, Sky News has been told.

The military has had 20,000 personnel, including reservists, on high-readiness alert since March.

So far 4,000 of them have been used.

The number on high-readiness alert is set to reduce to fewer than 10,000 in the coming days, reflecting the changing approach to tackling the virus.

James Heappey MP, the armed forces minister, told Sky News it was time to rebalance the force so they could return to normal duties in time.

He said: “What we are now in a position to do is to say we don’t need 20,000 people at high readiness. That doesn’t mean the people have gone anywhere. They’re still there, they’re still available to respond and we can return them to high readiness if the need arises.

“But if you have a lot of troops at high readiness, it has quite an impact on the lives they lead and the training that they can do. And we are acutely aware that if we have such a high number at high readiness, that means they can’t be training for operations and contingencies that we might need them for in the near future, and that makes our nation less safe.”

Sky News was given exclusive access to the military’s COVID-Command HQ in Aldershot – the first time cameras were allowed to film the nerve centre of operations.

The headquarters was set up at short notice in March to provide support to the NHS and other civilian organisations.

There is a quiet routine. Soldiers sit two metres apart, many wearing headsets to connect on internet calls to liaise with Whitehall departments and military units around the country.

All three services, the army, RAF and Royal Navy, have been deployed.

Personnel built the Nightingale hospitals and are currently helping staff 96 mobile testing units around the UK.

Senior officers are embedded in government departments as advisers and liaison teams.

There are 966 military clinicians working in the NHS, 400 personnel are deployed as ambulance drivers and more than 23,000 test kits have been delivered to care homes.

In a long history, the British armed forces have never done anything like this.

General Ty Urch, commander of home forces, said: “I think unprecedented would be the word that I have used.

“Slightly overused at the moment but to my memory in 36 years in the army, we’ve not had a national UK resilience operation where defence has been required at this scale and this tempo.”

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