The setting of the ceiling limit on ordinary beds in 1985 was a counter policy to increasing ordinary beds that would have served for “social hospitalisation,” which appeared to be occurring more in the private cluster. The private cluster responded to this policy by reducing the LOS of existing beds. The gap in the LOS between these two clusters reflects the fact that more hospitals in the private cluster chose to move towards long-term care, such as “hospitals for the elderly” in 1983, “hospitals empowered for long-term care” in 1990, and “wards for long-term care” in 1992. These are different types of geriatric nursing care hospitals/wards classified by the MHLW. The different categorisation of long-term care beds in 2001 seems to have moved private hospitals in the direction of a new category for their ordinary beds, which explains the deceleration in the rate of reduction of LOS.