New Publication | EU Preparedness and ICU Capacity: Where Are the Beds?

As Europe faces an increasingly complex landscape of health threats, a new article published in Intensive Care Medicine asks a deceptively simple — yet critically important — question: do we actually know how many ICU beds are truly available when a crisis strikes?

In “EU Preparedness and ICU Capacity: Where Are the Beds?”, Claudia Ebm, Jan De Waele, and Maurizio Cecconi expose a major blind spot in European health preparedness. Most current datasets report the number of ICU beds — but this provides only a partial and static picture of real capacity. True ICU readiness depends on far more than physical infrastructure: it requires trained staff, including intensivists, nurses, and respiratory therapists, adequate equipment and monitoring capability, surge flexibility, and access to real-time operational data.

As the authors powerfully put it: a bed without staff is not an ICU bed.

Without harmonised definitions and dynamic indicators, policymakers cannot accurately assess whether health systems are genuinely ready for the next crisis. The article calls for a coordinated European response, including shared definitions of ICU care levels, reliable data on staffing and critical equipment, real-time monitoring of capacity and strain, and the development of a European ICU preparedness dashboard to support crisis response.

The urgency of this call cannot be overstated. From pandemics and extreme climate events to cyberattacks targeting hospital infrastructure — and increasingly, geopolitical tensions that threaten the stability of European health systems — the ability to rapidly mobilise and accurately measure intensive care capacity is no longer a technical issue. It is a matter of national and continental security. The war in Ukraine and rising instability across Europe’s borders have already demonstrated how quickly healthcare systems can be overwhelmed by conflict-driven surges in intensive care demand. Building resilient, data-driven ICU preparedness is essential — not just for the next pandemic, but for the full spectrum of crises that Europe may face.