The younger chronic sick: how many beds?

The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970) is an expression of the increasing attention being paid to the needs of the handicapped in our society. The most severely physically handicapped represent only a small proportion of the total who are physically disabled (Harris, 1971) but their degree of dependency often makes it necessary to care for them in institutions, either in the form of residential homes or in special units in hospitals. For those who plan these hospital units, advice is available on the size, location, staffing, and equipment (Ministry of Health, 1968). No firm guidance can be found, however, on the question ofhow many places per unit of population to provide. In this paper we review the findings of the small number of surveys that have been conducted in recent years of the need for, and provision of, hospital places for the younger chronic sick; we predict the likely consequences of meeting this need with various levels of provision and we discuss the relative merits of a number of different admission policies for holiday relief cases.