19.09.12
Health minister rejection of RCP report
Source: Harry Longman via www.nationalhealthexecutive.com
Re: RCP report ‘completely wrong’ – health minister
In the minister’s shoes I think I would be wary of dismissing this report. The key thing is to look at the evidence, which I believe the RCP have tried to do, and the seriousness of the message would merit further attention.
The statistic that ‘only 85% of beds are used’ is immaterial – no service system, coping with variable demands, should be operated anywhere near 100%, and from my engineering operational background I would say that 85% overall is rather high.
Winter peaks will be much higher than average, inevitably, and that is when we have seen headlines about some hospitals ‘closing A&E’.
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