ELDERLY patients at Maidstone Hospital who could have been discharged more than a month ago are still there because of the countywide nursing homes bed crisis. The chronic shortage in nursing home places throughout Kent has left nearly 40 elderly patients stranded in wards at Maidstone Hospital with no where else to go.

The bed-blocking has resulted in urgent operations being postponed and the hospital has, at times, had up to 30 people waiting in accident and emergency who need to be admitted on to a ward.

Some of the elderly patients have now been at the hospital for more than a month when they could have been discharged, and as the bed blocking continues senior consultants have warned that action needs to be taken before lives are lost.

Peter Jones, consultant surgeon at Maidstone Hospital, said: "When casualty is packed with more than 30 patients waiting for emergency admission, some needing urgent surgery, and when all elective surgery is cancelled, including cancer surgery, it cannot be overstating the situation to call this a crisis.

"Every week operations are being cancelled and consultants can go three or four weeks in a row with 90 per cent of their lists being cancelled because we do not have enough beds. We do try to make sure breast cancer patients aren't cancelled but other equally urgent cases are getting postponed. Action has to be taken now or there will be a disaster this winter."

Mr Jones said there needed to be a steady expansion in both residential and nursing homes in Kent to cope with the problem. He added: "This will take too long to prevent disaster this winter and temporary immediate solutions are required."

Consultants at the hospital are working closely with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to solve the problem. A trust spokeswoman said the consultants had come up with a number of "brilliant" ideas that would hopefully reduce waiting times in A&E this winter.

Mr Jones has asked the trust about erecting prefabricated buildings at Preston Hall in Aylesford to act as temporary wards for the elderly. He has also asked if a ward can be opened at Maidstone's ophthalmic hospital to provide more space.

Kent has lost nearly a quarter of its nursing home beds in the last two years as private care homes close due to increased costs in meeting new regulations. Kent County Council was given £2.1 million by the Government in October to help solve the care services problem by paying the homes more.

County Cllr Peter Lake (Con), KCC's cabinet member for social care and community health, said: "Officers will be consulting with the health authorities and the private sector about how best we can use the funding.

"Obviously any new money is welcome, but what we need is more money to be put into our base-budget. This is the only way that we will be able to stabilise the private sector market and stop homes from closing.

He added: "Based on the fees that nursing homes are telling us they need just to survive, we need an extra £7 million, as well as an extra £10 million for domiciliary care (care in people's own homes)."