Hospital Beds
(asked on 2nd November 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list by month total ICU bed occupancy in the NHS in each of the last three years, including the current year to date.
The information requested from November 2017 to February 2020 is shown in the following table.
| % of Open beds occupied | |||
Year | Period | Adult critical care beds | Paediatric intensive care beds | Neonatal critical care cots (or beds) |
|
|
|
|
|
2017-18 | November | 84.6% | 82.9% | 74.0% |
2017-18 | December | 82.2% | 79.9% | 70.9% |
2017-18 | January | 86.6% | 77.2% | 71.5% |
2017-18 | February | 85.4% | 79.3% | 69.7% |
2017-18 | March | 82.6% | 78.7% | 72.3% |
2018-19 | April | 81.9% | 73.8% | 72.2% |
2018-19 | May | 79.9% | 73.3% | 72.9% |
2018-19 | June | 79.6% | 75.4% | 74.2% |
2018-19 | July | 78.3% | 72.4% | 69.8% |
2018-19 | August | 78.4% | 66.2% | 70.1% |
2018-19 | September | 80.0% | 76.1% | 69.3% |
2018-19 | October | 80.8% | 77.2% | 73.8% |
2018-19 | November | 82.7% | 87.6% | 72.5% |
2018-19 | December | 75.4% | 74.1% | 67.4% |
2018-19 | January | 85.3% | 79.3% | 70.1% |
2018-19 | February | 81.5% | 77.4% | 70.1% |
2018-19 | March | 80.7% | 77.3% | 71.2% |
2019-20 | April | 80.8% | 77.0% | 70.2% |
2019-20 | May | 79.2% | 73.3% | 70.8% |
2019-20 | June | 80.6% | 74.9% | 73.3% |
2019-20 | July | 79.6% | 73.8% | 69.9% |
2019-20 | August | 79.4% | 64.7% | 69.4% |
2019-20 | September | 80.8% | 74.4% | 69.9% |
2019-20 | October | 80.9% | 76.5% | 69.7% |
2019-20 | November | 82.9% | 83.5% | 73.0% |
2019-20 | December | 75.3% | 79.6% | 71.5% |
2019-20 | January | 83.0% | 79.2% | 71.2% |
2019-20 | February | 81.1% | 81.3% | 69.3% |
Notes:
- Data relating to the number of available and occupied critical care beds is a monthly snapshot taken at midnight on the last Thursday of each month and can fluctuate from month to month.
- Before February 2011, data on critical care beds were published bi-annually in a separate collection. Therefore, critical care data published until January 2011 should be treated with a degree of caution.
- 3. In November 2018, NHS England published refreshed guidance for MSitRep which provided clarification on the definition for Paediatric Intensive Care (PIC) bed availability and occupancy. This update was made to ensure definitions reflected the latest terminology and Paediatric Intensive Care Society (PICS) standards, to improve data quality and address overcounting of PIC beds (including possible inclusion of some high dependency unit (HDU, level 2) beds. Therefore, PIC bed availability data from November 2018 shows a step change, with the 339 reported beds in November 2018 being approximately 130 – 140 lower than previously in 2018-19 (around 460-470 available beds).
Due to COVID-19 and the need to release capacity across the National Health Service to support the response, NHS England have paused the monthly collection and publication of critical care bed capacity. However, from 12 November 2020, a separate weekly data update commenced which includes data on adult critical care capacity and occupancy. Data from 2 November to 15 November is available at the following link: