More hospital admissions, but shorter stays - report
A new report has confirmed that between 1990 and 1999, an increasing number of sick people have been treated in hospital, with their stays shortening over the same period.
The Economic and Social Research Institute report shows 800,000 discharges were treated in 1999, an increase of more than 40% during the previous 10 years.
The reports says acute patients are now more ill, with the average stay in hospital down to 5.1 days by 1999.
However, there has been an increase of 1.6 in the average number of procedures delivered per discharge.
More than one fifth of discharges from health board hospitals are private patients, with 42% medical card holders.
