What is it about?
• End-of-life constitutes the period of highest acute bed occupancy • A count of deaths (all-cause mortality) therefore is a good proxy for bed demand • The ratio of occupied beds per death in England has been declining by around 0.3% per annum • However, up to +7% excursions from the trend-line are possible • Deaths are due to increase for the next 20 years as the WW II baby boomers begin to die • Bed demand will, therefore, start to increase rather than decrease • Plans to reduce bed numbers in the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) are seriously flawed
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Why is it important?
It would appear that deaths, as a proxy for end-of-life enables a far better estimation of the number of occupied acute beds. The factors leading to higher deaths also seemingly promote admission for non-end-of-life related events.
Perspectives
In the UK, there has been an almost insane drive to reduce acute bed numbers. The UK is now so chronically short of beds that all the deleterious effects of high occupancy and bed non-availability are occurring in increasing measure. This is part of a far longer series of papers, see http://www.hcaf.biz/2010/Publications_Full.pdf
Dr Rodney P Jones
Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Deaths and acute hospital beds in the sustainability and transformation plans, British Journal of Healthcare Management, October 2017, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjhc.2017.23.10.498.
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