Hospitals and clinics have lost around 2,000 beds by 2024, a decline in capacity that has continued over the past twenty years but “slow down”while the number of partial hospitalization places (without overnight stays) is increasing, according to a Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) study published Thursday, November 13.
By the end of 2024, France had 2,965 health institutions including 1,330 public hospitals, 655 private non-profit institutions and 980 private clinics. Among them, 90 companies provide only psychiatric care, according to research carried out by the social ministry’s statistics service.
Hospitals in all these sectors have a total of 367,000 full inpatient beds, 91,200 partial inpatient beds (no overnight stays) and 25,400 home inpatient beds (the number of patients treated simultaneously). General hospitals account for 61% of beds and 51% of places.
“Outpatient shift”
In 2024, there were 2,000 beds closed (−0.5%), a slower decline than in the previous two years (−1.2% in 2023, −1.8% in 2022) or even compared to before the health crisis (−0.9% per year on average between 2013 and 2019).
At the same time, 2,800 partial hospitalization beds opened by 2024, an increase of 3.1%, “slower than previous years” (+4.0% in 2023, +3.2% in 2022), however “higher than the average annual growth between the end of 2013 and the end of 2019” (+2.5%). However, in psychiatry, the number of places has stagnated. Home care capacity increases significantly: +1,300 places or +5.5% in 2024, after +4.1% in 2023.
“For about twenty years”we observe the same trend, a “continued decline in full inpatient capacity”faced with a significant increase in the number of places where there is no overnight stay or no home, in context “outpatient shift”, but also the strain on human resources “don’t let it persist” bed, Drees analysis.
Between the end of 2013 and the end of 2024, the company lost 45,500 beds (−11%), but gained 23,400 beds (+34.6%). In detail, France’s 450 maternity wards now have 13,800 obstetrics beds (−1.7% compared to 2023), 2,800 neonatology beds (−1.0%), 1,200 intensive care beds (+2.9%) and almost 770 intensive care beds (+1.1%).
Neonatal intensive care bed density reached 1.2 beds per 1,000 births, but there were regional disparities. This figure is greater than 1 per 1,000 births in fourteen regions, but lower in four regions in the southeastern part of mainland France (including Corsica).
