Cutting hospital beds would be “lunacy,” warns senior emergency doctor

Plans to reduce bed capacity in some NHS hospitals are “lunacy” against the current backdrop of rising demand and high occupancy rates, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s vice president has said.

A number of the 44 sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) that are currently being implemented across England have proposed reductions in inpatient beds as part of long term strategies to invest more in out of hospital services.

Full story The BMJ 25 January 2017