asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many (a) occupied and (b) unoccupied hospital beds there are in each of the regions of Great Britain.

The requested information is given in the table for regional health authorities in England. A variety of reasons may lead to some beds being unoccupied. These include the need to have beds available for emergencies, unexpectedly early discharges which leave a bed available until the next day and unpredictable admissions (for example, in maternity cases).The health services information steering group recommended in its first report that bed use data should include all patients using a ward in a 24-hour period and that aggregated bed occupancy statistics should not be used as an indicator of efficient bed use. A more useful measure of bed utilisation is patient throughput per available bed. For instance, in 1985 19·5 in-patient cases were treated per available bed compared with 15·00 in 1979.Statistics for the rest of Great Britain are a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.