§ Mr. GoodladTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what were the bed-occupancy rates in each specialty in each hospital in(a) the Crewe, (b) the Chester and (c) the Halton health districts in each of the last five years.
§ Mrs. Currie[holding answer 3 December 1987]: A table giving the information my hon. Friend seeks has now been placed in the Library.
A variety of reasons may lead to variations in occupancy. These include the need to have beds available for emergencies, unexpectedly early discharges and unpredictable admissions (for example in maternity cases).
The health services information steering goup recommended in its first report that bed use data should 715W include all patients using a ward in a 24-hour period and that aggregated bed occupancy statistics should not be used alone as an indicator of efficient bed use. A more useful measure of bed utilisation is patient throughout per available bed and this has been included for information.
District Health Authority 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 In-patient cases treated in the surgical acute specialties in NHS hospitals Chester 11,590 13,971 13,807 13,001 13,303 Crewe 12,855 14,735 13,963 13,737 13,917 Halton 0 0 0 993 2,907 Day cases treated in the surgical acute specialties in NHS hospitals Chester 3,472 5,042 5,210 5,773 5,623 Crewe 2,408 3,038 3,506 4,522 5,635 Halton 0 0 0 800 2,128