More beds, staff and capacity needed across hospital and community care services

31 May 2022

Responding to a Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimate that the NHS needs 13,000 more staffed beds, interim chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery said:

"There is an urgent need to bolster capacity across the health and care system. We need more beds not just in hospitals but in mental health and community services too.

"Any expansion in capacity must be matched by more staff to look after more patients. Overstretched NHS staff are working flat out to clear care backlogs that built up over the pandemic. But pressures and problems predating the pandemic persist, including severe workforce shortages.

"As the number of hospital beds filled remains very high this has a knock-on effect on other services including mental health. Stresses on community care mean that patients can't be discharged as soon as they could be to be looked after closer to home.

"Without a fully-funded, long-term workforce plan from the government patients will continue to pay the price of an understaffed health service which is doing all it can to meet growing demand and deliver care to everyone who needs it as quickly as it can."