EU hospital beds down 7 percent over the last ten years

Brussels – Over the past decade, the number of hospital beds in Europe has fallen from 557 to 511 per 100,000 inhabitants. A slow and constant reduction, as confirmed by the latest data released by Eurostat: even from 2022 to 2023, 5 beds per 100 thousand inhabitants were lost. The trend is the same in Italy, where there has been a reduction of 25 beds since 2013. Today, the country’s hospitals have a total of 179,372 beds. 

The picture taken by the EU statistical service indicates a generalized decline, with the mitigating factor, as Eurostat points out in a note, that “scientific and technological developments have shortened the average length of stay for many in-patient procedures or replaced them with out-patient or day care alternatives.”

Among the EU-27, Bulgaria has the highest ratio of hospital beds to population, with an average of 864 per 100,000 inhabitants. Germany followed with 766, Romania with 728, Austria with 660, and Hungary with 651. On the contrary, in 2023, seven Member States had fewer than 300 hospital beds per 100,000 inhabitants: Sweden was the bottom of the list (187), followed by the Netherlands (231), Denmark (233), Finland (260), Spain (288), Ireland (289), and Cyprus (298). Italy was just above the threshold of 300 beds per 100,000 inhabitants, with 308.

While the total number of beds for medical care decreased by 7 percent between 2013 and 2023, the most significant contraction was in Finland, where the total number of beds decreased by 45 percent. Only six member states saw the opposite trend: Portugal and Spain (both with a 0.8 percent increase), Romania (with a 4 percent increase), Malta (with an 8 percent increase), Bulgaria (with a 13 percent increase), and Ireland (with a 30 percent increase). 

In contrast, and confirming a progressively ageing European population, the number of beds in nursing and other long-term care residential facilities relative to the population increased in most EU countries. In 2023, there were approximately 3.6 million.