Think-tank urges hospital bed cuts to raise standards

The right-wing Reform think-tank said London, the North-East and North-West should close more than a quarter of their beds, while Yorkshire should shed 22 per cent – around 3,700 beds in total.

It claimed the move would save cash and create competition which would drive up standards.

The group also called on the Government and opposition parties to stop interfering in local decision-making about NHS hospital changes. Its study said the NHS has been right to reduce hospital beds by nearly a half since 1987, from 270,000 to 160,000 in England.

The latest challenges in healthcare – helping people manage long-term conditions such as diabetes – are less reliant on hospitals and can be managed in the community, it said.

Its report also highlighted the number of beds being taken up by elderly patients. "These high rates of occupancy could reflect the blocking of beds by patients who could be treated in the community," it said.

Reform says the North-East has 40 per cent more beds and more than twice as many hospital sites per head of population as the area covering Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire.

Bringing every region into line with the area would mean a 32,000 cut in the overall number of beds, from 160,000 to around 128,000. The report said Health Minister Mike O'Brien was wrong to interfere last week with plans to reduce hospital beds in Gloucestershire in 30m cuts.

Chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee Mark Porter said: "There can and should be reconfiguration of services when it is driven by the needs of patients and the professional advice of clinicians.

"But the idea that service changes should be carried out quickly, that they can automatically improve quality, and that capacity in the primary care sector can immediately increase to cope with such changes, is nonsense."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "The local NHS is best placed to decide how best to meet the needs of patients in their areas.

"Efficiencies are about making sure that trusts can continue to provide high-quality care at a time when spending is going to be tighter across the whole public sector."