SOUTHEND Hospital is facing an unprecedented bed crisis, worsened by a shortage of nurses and a relentless increase in patients being admitted via A&E.

Somewhere in this chaotic equation is an inability, once they are well enough to leave, to get elderly and vulnerable patients out of hospital and back into the community with the appropriate support.

Social care has been a casualty of Government austerity cuts, with councils closing homes as they can’t afford them. The result is the bed-blocking crisis in hospitals. Hospitals are duty bound to ensure patients’ needs are met after they are discharged. With fewer care homes, patients stay inhospital – taking up beds needed by other patients.

The problem has deepened recently because of other pressures, including staff recruitment problems. Now it seems Southend Hospital is so desperate to free up beds, families claim they are being pressured into putting relatives into cares homes they consider unsuitable.

Diane Simson’s 78-year-old husband, who has dementia and was admitted to hospital in a critical condition, can’t fault the care her husband received, but is still reeling from an unseemly battle, as the hospital tried to discharge him.

She claims patients and their families are being bullied into accepting unsuitable arrangements. Inher case, the inability of social workers and hospital administrators to work together was a key factor. She thinks agencies should be better co-ordinated. She has a point.