Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hospital beds per head of the population there were in (1) England, (2) London and (3) Lewisham, in each year from 2008–09 to 2013–14.

Earl Howe

Hospital beds data per head of population are not collected centrally.

Hospital beds data are collected for each National Health Service trust and NHS foundation trust.

Population estimates and projections are available for local NHS commissioning bodies; primary care trusts (PCTs) up to 2011 and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) from 2012. These data can be aggregated up to larger areas such as strategic health authorities (SHAs) up to 2011 and local area teams from 2012.

A table has been placed in the Library which shows the estimated hospital beds per 1,000 population in England and London each year from 2008-09 to 2013-14.

It is not possible to show the hospital beds per head of population in a local commissioning body such as Lewisham, because this would be based on the assumptions that the beds in a trust are available only for the population of the local commissioning body and that this population only uses these beds. These assumptions will not reflect reality as trusts serve populations from outside their commissioning areas and patients will access services in hospitals outside their local commissioning area.