Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Question 16: To ask the Minister for Health the total number of public hospital beds currently closed; the number per hospital; and if he has a programme for the reopening of closed hospital beds. [26384/11]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 40: To ask the Minister for Health the number of beds that have been closed across the country due to financial constraints. [26278/11]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 166: To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which the full general hospital bed complement has been identified, agreed and or provided for in the future having particular regard to the experience over the past six years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26638/11]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 16, 40 and 166 together.

There are some 13,000 acute hospital beds, including some 1,800 day beds, in the Irish public acute hospital system. The exact number available for use at any one time varies according to a number of factors, including planned levels of activity, refurbishment and infection control. Beds are also closed to control expenditure because, like all other public agencies, hospitals have to operate within budget.

The criteria for counting bed closures and methods vary between hospitals. Instead of having a debate about the exact number of beds that are judged to be open or closed at any one time, I believe we must concentrate on getting the best possible services for patients from the budgets available to us.

This means we need to focus on how beds are used, on the throughput of patients, on reducing length of stay to international norms and on having as many procedures as possible carried out as day cases rather than inpatient work.

The work of the SDU, together with implementation of the Clinical Care Programmes in the HSE, will help to improve the efficiency of our hospitals, allowing us to treat as many patients as possible within budget.

I believe that pursuing efficiencies through these means will be a far more productive approach than debating the number of beds open or closed at any one time.

The table gives the number of available beds in each hospital for the period 2009 and 2010.