English hospitals have lost 5 hospital beds for EVERY DAY the Coalition has been in power

We've lost around 10,000 hospital beds in England since Cameron took over in 2010

Since the Coalition came to power the NHS has lost around 10,000 hospital beds in England. That's a loss of more than 5 beds per day since five years ago.


NB: this is the number of unoccupied hospital beds OVERNIGHT

The number of beds available at night has gone down by nearly 10,000, from 144,455 to 134,591.

Most of them (nearly 7,000) have been lost in the “General and Acute” sector, i.e. surgical services.

On Tuesday an NHS surgeon expressed frustration at the lack of hospital beds .

Nearly a thousand have been lost in learning disabilities wards, while the number of maternity hospital beds has roughly remained the same - although it has to be said the number of births each year has slightly decreased.
The UK has fourth lowest number of beds per person in Europe

The OECD found that the UK has fewer hospital beds per person than almost any country in the developed world.

We have 2.8 beds per 1,000 people. Germany has over 8, Austria has more than 7, and France more than 6. The OECD average is 3.2.
This could be due to increases in technology..

This isn’t necessarily something to panic about - according to the OECD the reduction in hospital beds per capita can also be explained by progress in medical technology "which has enabled a move to day surgery and a reduced need for hospitalisation".

Also, the British Medical Journal has argued that mental health, learning disability and geriatric services had seen a more marked reduction in hospital beds because of a shift to community services.

That's what NHS England said too, when we asked them about these figures. They said that treatment times had been cut down, requiring fewer overnight stays:

"The NHS is treating people quicker than ever before thanks to advances in treatment and more care is being provided closer to home. This means that far fewer people need to stay in hospital overnight, which we know is better for patients.”
But fewer hospital beds don’t help with overcrowding

Our occupancy rate is appalling.

Last year the OECD found that we have the 7th highest occupancy rate among 25 OECD countries.

Whenever we have fewer than 15% of hospital beds available the risk of infection increases, according to experts .



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/english-hospitals-lost-5-hospital-5188945

One of the reasons is the amount of money lost to Private Healthcase from NHS Budget:

Private health firms pocket £18 million a day - that's £6 billion in the last year - from the NHS budget

Figures from Department of Health show in 2013-14 £6.6 billion was taken from NHS coffers to pay private health providers
Marks a 50% rise from before the coalition Government took power
Equates to around £1 in every £20 of NHS's total £113 billion budget
Department of Health say charities, social enterprises and other providers of healthcare have played important part in NHS for years


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2959004/Private-health-firms-pocket-18-million-day-s-6billion-year-NHS-budget.html#ixzz3SQ9DK6yE
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And they wonder why the Tories are the 2nd most hated brand in UK, topped only by UKIP.

FGS get this scummy lot out of office before they get the chance to inflict any more of their disgusting policies on the poor, the sick, the weak and vulnerable.