Modelling admissions booking of elective in-patients into a treatment centre

As part of the modernisation of the UK National Health Service, specialist centres called treatment centres are being introduced that cater solely for routine elective treatment for a relatively small number of conditions. In principle, such centres can adopt new methods of operation, e.g. organising booked admissions on a cyclic basis, organised to make efficient use of treatment resources. Assuming such a mode of operation, explicit cyclic formulae are derived for the mean and variance of bed demand. These take account of systematic differences between the lengths of stay of different patient groups and also the effects of emergency admissions. Using these formulae, optimisation methods are discussed that have the potential for contributing to resource planning and to assist the process of booking patient admissions. Such optimisation methods can be used to help reduce overall capacity needs or, conversely, to make better use of the capacity available.