The RCP has responded to a new report by The Royal College of Emergency Medicine indicating that 13,000 staffed beds are required in the NHS across the UK to drive meaningful change and improvement.
Responding to the report, Andrew Goddard, president of the RCP, said: “This report provides yet more evidence of the need to expand the NHS and social care workforce.
“Even before the pandemic hospital beds were short, but COVID-19 has created its own extra demand for beds, claiming around 3,000 beds for almost a year now. We also desperately need additional beds in social care. Without these, hospitals will continue to be full, with knock-on effects in emergency departments and on ambulances.
“The fact is, it’s simply not possible to have more staffed beds without increasing the number of doctors, nurses and other clinicians available to care for the patients that need them.
“The NHS England workforce strategy due later this year must look at what we know about current actual and predicted future demand for services and set out a range of short and long-term solutions to increase recruitment and improve retention. This is the only way we will truly keep pace with the growing need for healthcare.”
