Since the late 1980s, the total number of NHS hospital beds in England has more than halved — dropping from 299,000 in 1987/88 to 141,000 in 2019/20. Over the same period, the number of patients treated has increased substantially. This may leave you wondering how our public health system has coped.
Some of the demand for beds has been offset by medical advances and innovations, which mean that following certain operations patients can generally go home on the same day. Other types of care — for example related to mental illness or disabilities — are often now more likely to be given within the community rather than in hospital.
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