Practices in the health service ‘must change’
Failure to re-organise — including boosting the number of long-term residential beds in the community by almost 900 per annum — will create a need for an additional 5,214 in-patient beds by 2020, as well as 1,022 day beds, said the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). This is due largely to a growing and ageing population. The report predicts:
* The population will grow to between 4.7 million and 5.1 million by 2021.
