THE demand for accommodation in residential and nursing homes will not go away, but will steadily increase.

As a nation, we are living longer, yet new regulations and funding problems mean homes in both the public and private sectors are closing at an alarming rate.

As a direct consequence, more and more elderly people, who do not require the specialised resources of hospital care, are having to remain in hospital simply because there is nowhere else for them to go.

It means elderly people are being denied access to an environment more suited to their needs. We do not doubt the level of care given to such patients in hospital, but it is clear that hospital wards are not appropriate.

It also means that access to treatment is being denied to patients waiting for hospital beds, and hampering efforts to reduce waiting times and waiting lists.

Bed blocking is creating a vicious circle where elderly patients are not receiving the service they should have; where other patients needing to go into hospital are having to wait longer for treatment; and where the best and most cost-effective use is not being made of valuable and finite resources within the National Health Service.

Careful thought needs to be given to the mounting regulatory and funding pressures being applied to the care homes sector. The right balance needs to be struck between best use of taxpayers' money and achieving the best possible levels of care.

It is clear that, at present, there is a growing imbalance which needs to be corrected.

Incentives should be given to encourage private and public sector care homes to stay open in the short term. In the longer term, we need to encourage more accommodation to be made available.

In turn, this will eventually root out bed-blocking, freeing more resources to make inroads into waiting times.

There is a crying need for joined-up government to begin tackling this problem