An elderly patient has spent four months in hospital waiting for a place in a nursing home.

Ronald Billinghurst was taken to Worthing Hospital at the beginning of May after suffering a fall.

Mr Billinghurst, 83, has senile dementia and needs a place at a nursing home where he can get 24-hour specialist care.

West Sussex Social Services agrees the pensioner needs to go into a home but says it does not have the funding to pay for his care.

Mr Billinghurst's family are growing increasingly frustrated at the delay in finding him a place.

His son David, of Manor Road, Hurstpierpoint, said: "The staff at the hospital do the best they can for him but they can't keep their eye on him all the time.

"He has already tried wandering off and my main fear is one day he is going to get out of hospital and get hurt."

Mr Billinghurst said social services had discussed his father's case on four occasions but each time had turned down a place for him because of lack of money.

He said: "What angers me more is I was told a place was available at a nursing home quite close to us, which would have been idea.

"I looked around and it was a great place but when I went back to social services I was told they did not have the money to send him there.

"If that was the case then why send me up there to look around in the first place? All it did was raise my hopes unnecessarily.

"My father is an old man who has spent his life paying all the right taxes and National Insurance payments and this is how he is treated.

"He is quite happy where he is but to be honest he doesn't know any better. He should not be in a hospital as, no matter how hard they try, they can't look after him as well as a nursing home.

"It makes me furious. It is much cheaper to look after people in a nursing home rather than a hospital but there are still loads of people stuck in hospital because there isn't enough money to pay for a nursing home place.

"There is clearly something very wrong with the system and it needs to be sorted out."

A spokesman for West Sussex social services confirmed there was a shortage of funding available to provide Mr Billinghurst with appropriate accommodation.

He said: "We are working closely with our health colleagues to solve this problem. This shortage of funding is not exclusive to West Sussex.

"We will be meeting with Mr Billinghurst's son later this week to discuss the situation, which we will be looking at again."