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As Roy Lilley (NHSManagers.net) points out:
'The UK has around 2.5 hospital beds per 1,000 population. Across much of Western Europe & the OECD, the figure is typically between four & eight. Germany; eight beds per 1,000, France around six, Italy three & a half'.
Driven by ideas from Just-in-Time manufacturing the NHS has little spare capacity even before any surges. The winter crisis is not seasonal its a symptom of a service with too little slack being run on mistaken grounds!
@ChrisMayLA6 oh yes it used to be observed that bed occupancy rates was closely linked to health care acquired infection rates (E&W data), but since we now universally have v high occupancy rates the dose response effect has plateaued so we no longer see it. Doesn't mean it isn't there, reducing bed occupancy reduces risk of post operative infection slowing discharge and delivering poorer outcomes, currently covered up by over use of antibiotics in hospital care.
@ChrisMayLA6 Note that this 2.5 figure is a lie. I learned earlier in the year that hospitals are allowed to count reclining chairs as ‘beds’ for reporting purposes. The ward nurse explained this to me while I was with someone with appendicitis who really needed to lie down and these were the only ‘beds’ available.
So even that low number is actually an exaggeration of the real capacity. Many of the beds are not actually usable for people staying more than a few hours.
And then the remaining beds are used inefficiently. In a couple of weeks visiting a 4-bed room, I saw multiple people stuck for most of a day (more than a day, in a couple of cases) because:
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