§ Mr. Marquandasked the Minister of Health whether he will show, in tabular form, the number of beds available for the treatment of sufferers from tuberculosis in each hospital region of England and Wales for each of the years 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1951; and whether he will indicate for each region the average time such patients have to wait for admission to hospital or sanatorium after being recommended for admission.
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§ Mr. CrookshankThe number of such beds in non-teaching hospitals at 31st December, 1949 and 1950 are given below. Comparable figures for 1948 are not available, and those for 1951 are not yet complete, but provisional figures show that over 2,300 additional beds were made available for tuberculosis treatment during last year.
The right hon. Member will be aware that as admission to in-patient treatment depends on the circumstances of the particular ease an average estimate of the waiting period has little meaning. Recent inquiries have shown, however, that in general the waiting period has been substantially shortened almost everywhere, and the size of the waiting list fell last year by nearly 2,000.
Regional Hospital Area Beds Available 1949 1950 Newcastle … 2,147 2,326 Leeds … 1,830 2,019 Sheffield … 2,064 2,275 East Anglia … 806 892 N.W. Metropolitan … 1,865 2,241 N.E. Metropolitan … 1,535 2,000 S.E. Metropolitan … 1,802 2,032 S.W. Metropolitan … 2,752 3,016 Oxford … 513 666 South Western … 1,973 1,998 Wales … 2,439 2,545 Birmingham … 2,457 2,692 Manchester … 2,142 2,163 Liverpool … 1,841 1,943 The figures exclude beds allocated to T.B. treatment but temporarily unavailable (e.g., unstaffed) on 31st December. About 85 per cent. of the beds, on average are for respiratory cases. In addition to the above beds in non-teaching hospitals there are a total of approximately 850 tuberculosis beds in teaching hospitals