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Mr. John Evans
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the number of NHS hospital beds available, per head of the population, in each of the regional health authorities; and what were the figures for 1970, 1965, 1960, 1955 and 1950, respectively.
Dr. Owen
Following are the figures for 1973, being the latest year available,
| AVERAGE DAILY NUMBER OF AVAILABLE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BEDS PER 1,000 POPULATION BY REGIONAL HOSPITAL BOARD AREA | ||||||||
| Year | ||||||||
| Region | 1970 | 1965 | 1960 | 1955† | ||||
| Newcastle | … | … | … | … | 9·06 | 9·12 | 9·13 | 9·15 |
| Leeds | … | … | … | … | 9·96 | 10·37 | 10·90 | 11·22 |
| Sheffield | … | … | … | … | 7·36 | 7·74 | 8·15 | 8·44 |
| East Anglia | … | … | … | … | 8·04 | 8·66 | 9·44 | 9·63 |
| North West Metropolitan | … | 9·61 | 9·73 | 11·59 | 12·01 | |||
| North East Metropolitan | … | 9·07 | 9·66 | |||||
| South East Metropolitan | … | … | 9·17 | 9·86 | ||||
| South West Metropolitan‡ | … | 12·99 | 14·13 | |||||
| Oxford | … | … | … | … | 7·69 | 8·38 | 9·37 | 9·87 |
| South Western | … | … | … | 10·29 | 10·94 | 11·86 | 12·39 | |
| Wales | … | … | … | … | 9·55 | 10·09 | 10·32 | 10·32 |
| Birmingham | … | … | … | 8·15 | 8·70 | 9·31 | 9·61 | |
| Manchester | … | … | … | 8·74 | 9·17 | 9·80 | 10·03 | |
| Liverpool | … | … | … | … | 9·86 | 10·81 | 11·25 | 11·43 |
| Wessex* | … | … | … | … | 8·54 | 9·23 | 10·17 | — |
| England and Wales | … | … | 9·18 | 9·73 | 10·37 | 10·73 | ||
| * Wessex Regional Hospital Board formed in 1959. | ||||||||
| † Breakdown of provincial teaching available beds estimated. | ||||||||
| ‡ Figure comparatively high because of a concentration of psychiatric hospitals serving London which are located in Surrey. | ||||||||