step-down bed

step-down bed

A term of art for a hospital bed in the UK in which the occupying inpatient needs less-intensive care than before (i.e., is “stepped down”) and is either moved to a new facility/ward or the bed being used is reclassified (e.g., from an orthopaedic ward bed to orthopaedic rehabilitation bed), or else is an ITU/ICU inpatient who is “stepped down” to high-dependency unit status but remains in the same bed.