Mr. Jim Callaghanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the number of private hospital beds outside the National Health Service in the years 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980.
§ Dr. VaughanThis information is not kept in the form requested. The Department keeps statistics of total numbers of beds in premises registered under the Nursing Homes Act 1975. This includes nursing homes as well as hospitals, and the statistics do not show how many beds are provided at each of the different type of premises. We estimate, however, that the number of "acute" medical and surgical beds in the private sector in England and Wales was about 5,500 at 30 September 1980.