Derby: 150 hospital beds set to go

Dozens of beds at Derby hospitals will be cut to help save £15.9m this year, reports the Derby Evening Telegraph.

It is not yet known how many of the 1,157 beds at Derby City General Hospital and Derbyshire Royal Infirmary will be removed this year to make the saving.

But Chris Calkin, financial director of the trust that runs the hospitals, said that about 150 beds - the equivalent of five or six wards - were likely to go in the next few years.

It means many patients will not be admitted for an overnight stay ahead of operations and that more treatments will be carried out as day cases.

The trust is also looking to save money on staff, but it is hoping compulsory redundancies will be avoided by redeployment, retraining and natural wastage.

Mr Calkin said the trust had to make the £15.9m saving by March because the amount it was paid by the Government had been reduced by 2.5% in real terms.

All trusts in the country are in the same position.

He said: "We see the (money) problem getting worse and we are doing something about it now."

We know that we can be more efficient in how we use beds and that we can manage with a lot fewer beds than we have currently got and still provide the same volume and quality of service."

Derby North MP Bob Laxton said the way in which the health service operated had changed - patients were not needing to stay as long in hospital and therefore not as many beds were needed.

He said: "The health service is carrying out a lot more day work and people are spending a lot less time in hospital and so (the hospital) is accommodating these changes."

But former City Hospital patient Cyril Woods, 76, said it would be the staff and patients who would pay the price.

Mr Woods, of Brough Street, Derby, said: "I'm not at all surprised. I have been sent home at 10pm before because they've needed the bed."

Charlie Carruth, East Midlands organiser for Unison, also believed the beds were needed. He said: "Those beds shouldn't be cut and we should be asking for more money from the Government.

"Derby deserves more money. It is a good trust - it's really well run and efficient and the staff in it are absolutely marvellous."