Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As of July of this year there were 12,733 beds in the health service, 10,579 of them being inpatient beds and 2,154 day beds. There has been a range of reviews, with the most recent bed capacity review carried out by PA Consulting in 2007. It was commissioned by the HSE at the time to carry out an independent review of the acute bed capacity requirements for Ireland until 2020. Interestingly, it said that if we continued with the current model, we would need to increase the bed stock to 19,822, an increase of 70% at the time. It also said that if we shifted care from hospitals to the community, the projected number of acute hospital beds could fall to 8,834, a fall of 25%. Those are not my views or statistics but those of an independent external company. I agree with the Deputy’s point about needing to consider the full spectrum because the more we can do outside the acute setting, the better the impact on the numbers. We need to get this right.

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