asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give the number of beds available for patients in Orpington Hospital in each year since 1973, giving the categories to which they are allocated and indicating what categories of patients are now treated else-where.

The table below shows the average number of beds available for each of the specialties named in each year since 1973, together with the number of beds allocated to each specialty on 31st December of that year. When patients are admitted under a specialty for which no beds are formally allocated these are made available by "borrowing" from another specialty within the ward of admission. There is thus a corresponding reduction in the bed availability of this later specialty Even when beds are available it is clearly open to a doctor to take a clinical decision to refer a patient to another unit providing similar facilities locally. The Bromley Area Health Authority is fully aware of the need to ensure that services at Orpington are integrated with these others so that any shifting pattern of demand may be properly met.