asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the number of places in specifically designated National Health Services convalescent facilities for each year from 1980.

The available information is given in the table.

NHS hospitals, England—Convalescent departments
Year	Average daily number of available beds
1980	534
1981	432
1982	302
1983	313

These figures exclude contractual arrangement facilities. The reason for the reduction in beds was given in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) on 8 July at column