Hospital crisis: what is bed block?
'Bed block' is when new patients can’t be admitted to a hospital due to a lack of beds.
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00:00To be admitted to the emergency department of a hospital, a bed must be available.
00:06When all ward and elective surgery beds are full, it means that someone in the emergency department can't be admitted, preventing a new patient from being accommodated.
00:17When there isn't enough beds to admit patients, the hospital is experiencing bed block.
00:24But the patients keep arriving. If a patient arrives by ambulance and there is no bed available, paramedics must stay with them, making them then unavailable for other emergencies.
00:38Several ambulances may queue outside a hospital, waiting to transfer their patients. This is referred to as ambulance ramping.