Hospitals need to become smaller, with fewer beds, to help save the NHS from its \u201cpermacrisis\u201d, a thinktank has said.<\/p>\n
The role hospitals play needs to undergo \u201ca fundamental reinvention\u201d to help them escape the overcrowding that has become widespread over the last decade, according to the thinktank Re:State<\/a>.<\/p>\n Politicians and NHS<\/a> leaders will have to be prepared to push through a potentially controversial programme of downsizing hospitals for the service to remain viable, it adds.<\/p>\n The thinktank \u2013 formerly called Reform \u2013 argues in a new report that doing so will save the NHS billions of pounds, lead to better care for patients and relieve pressure on overworked staff.<\/p>\n Hospitals could shrink in size, shedding thousands of beds, as the result of a massive expansion of care delivered in and near people\u2019s homes. People will have much less need to go to or stay in hospital if they can access diagnostic tests, outpatient appointments and treatment at home or in community settings, to reflect the changed nature of illness that an ageing population has brought, it says.<\/p>\n Rosie Beacon, the author of the report, said: \u201cIt\u2019s less about counting beds but about what hospitals do and how they do it. Hospitals can become smaller because you can give people the same standard \u2013 and often a better range \u2013 of care without them being physically present. That [would produce] lower long-term running costs and a system that\u2019s financially sustainable.<\/p>\n \u201cHospitals shouldn\u2019t be made smaller just for the sake of it but because how and where we deliver secondary care no longer needs to be confined to a hospital bed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe natural consequence of a health service that succeeds in reducing hospital footfall, through better prevention and faster treatment, is that hospitals themselves will look smaller and different. Being honest about that isn\u2019t radical; it\u2019s simply facing up to what a modern, preventative NHS requires.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cA smaller hospital footprint is simply the outcome of care becoming faster and more effective. It\u2019s not about cutting services. It\u2019s about delivering them in ways that are faster, more convenient and more financially sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n