100,000
I overheard on the radio that in the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) has just 100,000 beds.
Between 1987/8 and 2016/17, the total number of NHS hospital beds fell by approximately 52.4 per cent — from 299,364 to 142,568. Within this total number, there are different categories of bed across which the scale of change has varied considerably. See image.
The number of overnight general and acute beds has fallen by 43.4 per cent between 1987/8 and 2016/17 — from around 180,889 to 102,269. However, within this category beds for the long-term care of older people fell more substantially. Between 1987/8 and 2009/10 — when beds for older people were recorded separately — numbers fell 60.8 per cent, from more than 53,000 to slightly less than 20,900.
The largest percentage falls have occurred in overnight mental health and learning disability beds, which fell by 72.1 and 96.4 per cent respectively between 1987/8 and 2016/17. This was underpinned by a policy shift to providing care for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities in the community rather than in institutional settings.
Data from: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers
Considering that Mental Health will be a growing problem in years to come and that there is a time bomb in connection with a growth in older age people, I will leave it to you to decide whether the current UK government have done a good job or not when it comes to looking after the nation’s health?