HOSPITAL bosses in the North-East are pushing ahead with controversial plans to impose time limits on "bed blockers".

The new policy, which gives patients 14 days to select a care home of their choice, is intended to speed up the discharge of patients from acute hospitals.

It has been criticised by the charity Age Concern, which said it was worried that older people would be pressurised into making decisions.

The policy will be discussed at the next board meeting of County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust next Wednesday.

If it is approved, it will end the right of elderly patients to remain in hospital until a place in a care home of their choice becomes available.

The Government has called for greater efforts to be made to ensure that beds in acute hospitals are not taken up by patients who are fit enough to be discharged but cannot find a care home which suits them.

Ministers have introduced a £100-a-day fine for bed-blockers, payable by the local authority to the hospital trust.

In a document setting out the reasons for the policy and how it will work, Laura Robson, director of nursing, states: "Where a place in a particular home chosen by the individual is not currently available and is unlikely to be in the near future, they do not have the right to occupy indefinitely an NHS bed."

Where there are no vacancies their name can be placed on a waiting list but they will be expected to choose a home with a vacancy.

When a place becomes available in the preferred home, arrangements will be made to transfer the patient "as soon as possible".

Additional care home places are being made available and hospital bosses are reporting a sharp drop in discharged delays.