Average hospital bed occupancy rate for 2017 sits at 92%
- Between January and March this year, 91.4% of available beds overnight were full
- However, some trusts were operating closer to their full capacity – at around 99%
- Experts point out bed occupancy levels should not exceed the 85% safe level
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Sophie Borland Health Editor For The Daily Mail
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Hospitals are more overcrowded than they ever have been before, official new figures reveal.
Between January and March of this year, an average of 91.4 per cent of available NHS beds overnight were full. But some were operating much closer to maximum capacity.
Experts say that occupancy levels should not exceed the 85 per cent safe level, as above this can have serious health risks.
The ‘exceptionally worrying’ findings depict the true horror of the bed shortage across the country, surgeons warn.
The surge in hospital occupancy rates has partly been caused by a huge reduction in bed numbers, to save money.
Between January and March of this year, an average of 91.4 per cent of available NHS beds overnight were full. But some were operating much closer to maximum capacity
Hospitals have cut approximately 15,000 beds in the last six years – about 10 per cent – as part of a drive to treat patients in their own homes.
At the same time wards are becoming increasingly occupied by frail elderly patients unable to go home due to cuts to social care.
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Statistics of this kind were first compiled in 2000-01 by NHS England, back when the average occupancy rate was 84 per cent.
WHY SHOULD IT NOT EXCEED 85%?
Patients are deemed more likely to die from either infections or neglect when wards are above the safe level of 85 per cent.
It is believed that doctors and nurses may not always have time to wash their hands between patients.
While there is also a danger that staff do not thoroughly clean beds in between patients as they are so busy.
But many warn this is becoming increasingly difficult to attain, with the NHS being over-stretched amid it’s worst winter on record.
But since then, the figures have continued to increase and have left many lives in danger in recent years.
A recent House of Commons Library report showed there were regularly more than 20 trusts operating at bed occupancy rate of higher than 99 per cent in the first two months of the year.
Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, lambasted the crisis within the NHS, and said it will have ‘led to many planned operations being cancelled’.
She said: ‘These numbers are exceptionally worrying and suggest that reductions in hospital bed numbers over recent years may have gone too far. We are running short of space in hospitals.
‘Medical advances have meant more surgery can take place without an overnight hospital stay and this has allowed the NHS to reduce bed numbers.
‘However, at the same time there has been an increase in the number of frail older patients finding themselves in hospital because of a lack of social care or community alternatives.’
Miss Marx was keen to point out that the next Government should set out a clear plan to protect beds for planned surgery, especially during next year’s busy winter period.
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