NHS breaking point now 'the norm' as 15,000 beds are cut in six years

Breaking point is becoming “the norm” for the NHS, with 15,000 beds cut from hospitals in the space of six years.

The fall amounts to one in ten beds being lost, and has prompted warnings about patient safety amid rising pressure on the health service. 

The British Medical Association yesterday said that the decrease in beds was directly contributing to long waits in crowded A&E departments.

The warning comes after three quarters of hospitals last month reported dangerously high occupancy rates of 95 per cent, even though managers are told to aim for a rate of 85 per cent to leave a safe margin of beds to cope with surges of patient demand.

In the first quarter of 2010/11 there were 144,455 available beds, but in the same period in 2016/17 the figure was 130,774 - a fall of almost 9.5 per cent. The loss is comparable to 24 hospitals being closed down. 

Dr Mark Porter, BMA

And over 15 years, the number of available hospital beds falling by more than a third in 15 years, doctors’ leaders have warned.

The report also found pressure on mental health services is especially acute, with the number of beds nearly halving since 2000, causing an average of 726 patients a month to be treated in “out of area” units during the period March to October last year.

The BMA report also pointed to a steep rise in the rate of emergency re-admissions, which the organisation said indicated that patients are being discharged from hospital before too quickly.

“The UK already has the second lowest number of hospital beds per head in Europe per head and these figures paint an even bleaker picture of an NHS that is at breaking point,” said BMA council chair Dr Mark Porter.

"Failures within the social care system are also having a considerable knock-on effect on an already stretched and underfunded NHS.

“When social care isn’t available, patients experience delays in moving from hospital to appropriate social care settings which damages patient care and places a significant strain on the NHS.”

The report comes as comes as separate health service data revealed that the number of patients left stranded in A&E units for more than 12 hours has almost double in the past year.

Figures from NHS Digital show that for a seven-month period in 2015 the average number of patients who waited more than 12 hours in A&E units before being discharged or admitted was 363 a day.

But numbers had soared to 624 in the same period in 2016, and by October last year the average was more than 700 every day.

However, hospitals have stressed that these patients are not "waiting" for more than 12 hours to be treated, as they may be seen by doctors, nurses and undergo tests while in the department.

Alan Taman, spokesman for Doctors for the NHS, said: "The figures mirror a massive increase in human misery and anyone who sees them should hear the pain.

"The NHS isn't just creaking under the strain, it's falling apart.

Staff, the public, anyone who needs help and ends up in A&E are at risk now.

An NHS England spokesman acknowledged that hospitals were coming under increasing pressure, but said “in the main” they were managing to cope.

"We continue to see the vast majority of patients within four hours and, in fact, the latest figures published by NHS Digital show that last year the median time to assessment was 11 minutes and, on average, patients left A&E just two hours and 40 minutes after arriving,” he said.