A long-awaited inquiry into the NHS has called for an extra 4,000 beds to be introduced across the service in England over the next four years.

It also warns a further 25,000 beds will have to be created by 2020 simply to maintain the current situation.

The report was issued on Thursday, more than a year after the inquiry was set up by the then health secretary Frank Dobson.

Announcing the results of the inquiry, Mr Dobson's successor Alan Milburn said cuts in bed numbers over the past three decades had left the NHS unable to cope with growing public demand.

Mr Milburn told the BBC's Today programme: "My own view is that the trend of the last decade or so, which has seen big declines in hospital beds, simply cannot keep pace with the growing elderly population, or indeed the additional activity we now want to undertake in our hospitals."

"It suggests that over the next few years we need to see an increase of about 2,000 in the number of general and acute hospital beds, but across the whole system we probably need to see an increase of about 4,000."

The number of beds has fallen from 250,000 in 1960 to 149,000 now despite the fact that 3.5% more patients use the health service every year.

Freed up

The National Beds Inquiry for England also makes recommendations about how current bed space could be freed up.

Proposals put forward include salvaging old-style cottage hospitals which had been threatened with closure so that they can be used to care for the mainly elderly patients who take up valuable bed space.

Critical care beds are often occupied by elderly patients who are too well to need such specialised care, but too ill to go home.

Mr Milburn, who will be under pressure to accept the recommendations, said a "bridge" needed to be created for these patients between acute hospital beds and their own homes.

The scale of the beds crisis was highlighted during the recent flu outbreak, when patients were ferried hundreds of miles in the search for an intensive care bed.

Doctors welcome report

Dr Peter Hawker, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, said he was "relieved and heartened" by the government's admission that too many beds had been stripped out of the hospital service.

He said: "Patients are admitted, almost randomly, wherever there is a spare bed. As a result it is very difficult to ensure they get the right specialist medical and nursing care."

Dr Hawker said extra beds must be accompanied by additional funds for new staff and equipment.

Rabbi Julia Neuberger, chief executive of the health watchdog The King's Fund, called for a full audit of the winter crisis in the NHS.

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation said: "Providing a range of flexible options in the community offers one solution. But it is equally important to ensure that the hospital has the beds and intensive care resources to be able to respond in periods of high pressure."

The Royal College of Nursing said Mr Milburn's comments were "on the right track", but director of policy Pippa Gough added: "Beds without nurses, wherever you put them, are of no use to patients."