It's also worth noting that none of the stats explicitly show the impact of running isolation wards for flu nor covid, which can take up hidden capacity. It would be useful to see capacity charts, but then CCGs would argue if that was before or after various contingency measures (e.g. can be fewer patients because electives cancelled, if only one small area is in trouble they can do transfers locally etc). Effectively, all the figures need a certain level of knowledge about regional date-based circumstances, contingencies in place and expected short-term changes based on risk analysis at the time that have influenced elective surgery / capacity. The complexity reminds me of a hospital leader explaining they had more MRSA because the hospital took in stab victims; decisions on the ground that teenagers had to stop bleeding urgently, which was much more important than doing the swab before surgery. Numbers can't tell you the whole story for healthcare.