Professor Bob Logan, when he was Professor of Medical Care at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, used to say that:

“You can't grow potatoes in an empty bed.”closely linked with another Logan Law, that:

“The number of beds you have is the number of beds you need.”

I was reminded of this this month, reading the report from Germany that the use of acute hospital beds does not increase as the population ages. Presumably the system has other means of meeting needs.