§ Ms WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health to which areas he has made extra funding available for emergency beds; how many extra beds have been established for each area; and at what cost. [13722]
§ Mr. HoramIt is for health authorities to decide what health care to purchase, taking into account national priorities and local needs. Individual national health service trusts need to ensure that bed numbers are carefully matched to contracted workloads and are responsive to patient flows, including the local rate of emergency admissions.
Information on medical beds is not available centrally. Details of the average daily number of available acute beds in each trust are published annually in "Bed Availability in England", a copy of which is in the Library.