>> >>Cancer and other ill patients can only wait so long for life saving surgery.
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>> Indeed, But they are in the minority.
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I reckon more beds than you’d expect are taken up by inpatients who haven’t had recent surgery but do have complex or chronic health issues. Take a hospital I know reasonably well, the QA in Portsmouth. It has roughly 1,200 beds at its main site. The inpatient wards I’ve been to include renal, liver, cardiac, stroke and gastro. At between 40 and 60 beds a department that’s a quarter of the capacity accounted for. Then there are the cancer, haematology/oncology and goodness knows how many other departments that also have inpatient service is for managing long term illnesses. And of course what now seems to be called Older People’s medicine. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if over half a hospitals beds weren’t occupied by patients who either hadn’t had recent, or perhaps any, surgery. Add on to that the emergency stuff from accidents with breaks and fractures, and the more complex internal injuries stuff and you’re probably left with a third of the capacity for elective surgery. Cancel all elective surgery and you probably still can’t have more than 40% of your beds available for covid and emergencies.
But hospitals are like airlines...they’re designed to be operated at pretty high capacity. And while access to beds isn’t controlled by price, the bar you need to reach to get a bed is raised or lowered depending on circumstances. I can’t remember a winter when the NHS hasn’t been under pressure from a capacity perspective. But this year there’s also the challenge of lower staff numbers as so many are isolating.
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