Daily Insight: Clearing up the beds number confusion

It was widely reported on Monday that the health service was looking to open 5,000 new beds, following the publication of NHS England’s new urgent and emergency recovery plan. The reality is, however, less expansive. 

While NHSE’s press release announced there would be 5,000 “new sustainable beds”, the word “sustainable” is doing a fair bit of heavy lifting.

HSJ has established the plan is in fact to shift about 4,000 temporary hospital beds from inappropriate areas, typically added on top of bays’ normal capacity or in side rooms and corridors, into new wards next year, and then open around 1,000 additional staffed beds.

While the 5,000 beds claim was misleading, it is also worth noting that clamping down on beds in inappropriate places is of course a Good Thing.

The NHS needs to address its significant beds shortage, as reflected by its lowly position compared to other developed economies on beds per head of population, as highlighted by the Economist last week

But had there been 5,000 genuinely new beds in the offing there would simply not be the workforce to staff them. Indeed, staffing the additional 1,000 beds seems a major stretch in the confines of the current workforce crisis.

There was some good news in the plan for the likes of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and many others who have been pushing for full publication of the 12-hour delay figures, taken from time of arrival, instead of the current published figures, which are measured from time of discharge, by which point a patient can have waited for hours already. This data will start to be published from April, as we also reported on Monday.  

Card games

Tensions are rising between trust bosses and the British Medical Association after the union was accused of “unilaterally” publishing “unaffordable” rate cards.

The BMA has published a locum pay rate card for junior doctors which suggests they ask for rates of up to £150 per hour.

It states: “Junior doctors are within their rights to negotiate their own rates of pay and are not obliged to undertake this work if they deem the rates of pay to be inadequate.

“This rate card and guidance sets out the minimum rate at which the BMA would advise a junior doctor to work a locum shift for an NHS trust.”

The latest rate card is valid until April but has been met with frustration by leaders as they tackle significant elective backlogs.

NHS Employers chief executive Danny Mortimer said the BMA’s approach had “not been welcomed” by its members.

He told HSJ: “Clearly, however, health leaders recognise that other areas of concern including pensions taxation and the growing pay dispute between trade unions and the government need resolving.”

This is unlikely to soothe already tense relationships after the BMA was accused of “acting like football agents” when it published a rate card for consultants.