Following today’s announcement by NHS England (25 January) that it has delivered on its ambition of 5,000 more permanent beds, Dr Vicky Price, president elect of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “While this announcement is positive and important, it will be some time before patients and staff feel any improvement on the shop floor.
“Bed capacity is nowhere near meeting demand and that will continue to be a significant barrier to progress.
“In December we saw the highest number of 12-hour waits in emergency departments and third lowest four-hour performance on record.
“In addition, the numbers of patients fit for discharge and stranded in hospitals remains relatively static.
“There is still a huge amount to do and it will be a long and challenging journey to get to the place of delivering high quality care.”