Mr. Arnoldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the optimal size on clinical grounds in terms of the number of in-patient beds currently recommended to district health authorities when planning new general hospitals.
§ Mrs. CurrieThere is no universally applicable optimal size.
Each proposal must be looked at separately on its merits, balancing a range of factors. Although most district general hospitals now being built range between 400 and 800 beds, exceptions do occur. Factors taken into account would include:
- size and characteristics of the catchment area and its population;
- whether regional or supra-regional services are provided at the hospital;
- whether facilities (eg. geriatric or mental illness beds) are already provided elsewhere in the district;
- provision of a large enough range of services to meet the needs both of patients brought in following accidents or emergencies and non-emergency cases from the waiting lists;
- provision for a large enough population of patients in the specialties provided to ensure that staff have sufficient experience to maintain their skills and thus provide a high quality service;
- provision for sufficient patients to provide the experience required by the training bodies in order to employ junior doctors and nurses in training;
- provision for sufficient patients in the various specialties to make economic use of expensive equipment;
- the state of existing NHS stock;
- local social and geographical factors eg difficulties in travelling.