Bed Availability and Occupancy

The KH03 is a quarterly collection from all NHS organisations that operate beds, open overnight or day only. It collects the total number of available bed days and the total number of occupied bed days by consultant main specialty.

Data for this collection is available back to 2000-01.

Note for 2020-21 data

Hospital capacity has had to be organised in new ways as a result of the pandemic to treat Covid and non-Covid patients separately and safely in meeting the enhanced Infection Prevention Control measures. This results in beds and staff being deployed differently from in previous years in both emergency and elective settings within the hospital. As a result, caution should be exercised in comparing overall occupancy rates between this year and previous years. In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case.

Data

Overnight Beds – KH03
Day only Beds – KH03

Please note that other monthly overnight G&A bed availability and occupancy numbers are available via the link below
Overnight Beds – UEC Daily SitRep

Archived Data

Prior to 2010-11 the KH03 was an annual return collecting beds by ward classification. It also included data on Residential Care beds.
Residential Care Beds
Critical Care Beds Census

Statistical Press Notice

Statistical Press Notice, Quarter 2 2023-24 (PDF, 74KB)

Pre-release Access List

KH03 Pre-Release Access List (PDF, 49KB)

Guidance

KH03 Guidance January 2023 (PDF, 265KB)

KH03 Guidance FAQ (PDF, 139KB)

Contact Us

For further information about the published statistics, please contact us at:

Operational Information for Commissioning (National)
NHS England
Room 5E15
Quarry House
Leeds LS2 7UE
Great Britain
Email: england.nhsdata@nhs.net