A Kent charity has launched an appeal to ease the plight of elderly people who find they can no longer afford to stay in their chosen care home.

Leon Steer, chief executive of the Abbeyfield Kent Society, said elderly people in care had been hit as the effects of the credit crunch on savings and pensions combined with changes in local authority funding.

As a result, frail people, often suffering from dementia or Parkinson's disease were finding they were unable to remain in the care home where they had become settled.

The Abbeyfield Kent Society runs nine care homes and seven sheltered housing schemes in the county.

Mr Steer said: "Often, when a care home resident runs out of savings, social services step in but are unable to provide the total cost of care.

"Unless that old person can find the balance of the money they have to move to cheaper accommodation, sometimes many miles away from their family and friends.

"It is heartbreaking when people nearing the end of their lives have to agree to leave the home they have come to love and the friends they have made.

"The bursary that we are creating will, hopefully, go some way to solving this serious problem. Money raised through the appeal will be devoted to bridging the funding gap that occurs."

He said he had seen local authority funding increasingly geared towards the provision of care at home, and there seemed to be less cash available for those in residential care.

He had also seen "evidence coming through" that the slump in the economy had hit the funds of the elderly people.

He said: "The amount of money they have available is reduced because the value of pension schemes and so on has dropped. Also where sons and daughters pay top-ups some obviously have not got so much money at the moment."

The appeal was launched with a reception for guests, including mayors from all over the county, held at the Marriott Tudor Park Hotel, Bearsted.

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