Available beds remain stable at three of Sheffield's hospitals

While availability at Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust is below pre-pandemic levels, but only by one bed.

NHS data shows an average of 1,441 beds were available overnight at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust between July and September. This was a slight decrease on the 1,442 average between April and June, but still higher than the 1,439 available during the same period in 2019.

It was a similar picture at Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust which has 158 beds which was down from 162 earlier in the year.

Across England, the average number of available beds fell to 120,828 between July and September, five per cent down from the total during the same period last year.

The King's Fund said the latest data release covers the summer months when hospitals were recovering from the first wave of the pandemic and preparing for the second.

David Maguire, senior analyst at the think tank, added: "Many hospitals were operating separate units for Covid and non-Covid patients, so staff were stretched more thinly and unable to safely staff as many beds overall.

"It’s one thing to have physical beds available, but staff are the real limiting factor when it comes to actually using them."

Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said hospitals are usually able to use all the beds they have available – but cautioned "we're not in normal times".

NHS Providers, the membership organisation for the hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services, said it has been arguing for some time that the health service is short of beds heading into winter. It said this was in part because of ongoing staffing pressures.

Deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery added: “This is a real problem as trusts deal with pressures posed by the virus, growing demand for urgent and emergency care and the work to recover the backlog of routine operations. That is why the current lockdown restrictions are crucial in protecting that stretched capacity, so the NHS is able to provide care for everyone who needs it.”

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