Social services managers have incurred fines of almost £1 million for failing to provide care places for elderly patients stuck in hospital.

Local authorities are fined £100 a night for each person considered a delayed discharge in an effort to tackle hospital bed-blocking.

On average eight patients a week were blocking beds in the 12 months to April because East Sussex County Council had not found care places.

Hospital managers say there are now 52 patients in East Sussex fit for discharge with nowhere to go.

The Argus has learnt East Sussex County Council has paid £990,100 to the East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust since the Delayed Discharges Act was introduced last year to encourage social services to find care places for elderly people stuck needlessly in hospital.

Critics have said the council has added to the problem by closing care homes such as the Moreton Centre in Boscobel Road, St Leonards.

The authority hit back with a statement blaming the NHS.

It said: "The fundamental problem with bed-blocking is that some people are admitted to hospital unnecessarily in the first place and this must change We are encouraging health authorities to use the fines we pay for bed-blocking to invest in new alternative services as happens in other areas of the country.

"Despite severely restricted budgets we continue to invest in services to help people stay in their own homes but throwing council tax payers' money at the problem will not solve it.

"We are working to reform all our systems to ensure hospitals are used for the most serious cases."

A breakdown of official figures shows the council was fined £152,000 in 2003/04, £742,000 in 2004/05 and £96,100 so far since April.

A council spokeswoman said fines are paid by a ring-fenced Government grant and not by taxpayers. However, a Sussex health watchdog questioned why the money was not being used to pay for care places instead.

Linda Beckmann, of the Eastbourne-based Patient and Public Involvement Forum, was "staggered" by the level of fines. She said: "I don't think it is a very responsible council that is caught in a situation of paying fines rather than dealing with the problem.

"It is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. The money spent on fines would be far better spent on addressing the problems."

Bed-blocking has been an acute problem in East Sussex, primarily at the Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) and the Conquest Hospital, St Leonards.

During the winter the trust, which runs both hospitals, reported unprecedented pressure partly due to blocked beds.

For many weeks from January an average of 97 per cent of beds were occupied, well above what is nationally recognised as an efficient level of between 82 and 87 per cent.

The crisis led to more than 150 operations being cancelled on the day of surgery and many more a day or two in advance. It also raised fears that an accident and emergency department could temporarily close during times of extreme pressure.

In the end the trust took the extraordinary step of funding 30 nursing home places.

It also had plans approved to build a temporary 35-bed acute ward for surgical patients at the DGH in the corner of the staff car park.

A trust spokesman said: "The levels of delayed transfers of care across the trust does affect our ability to admit patients who require surgery or emergency care.

"We are working closely with our partners in health and social care and have an agreed plan to reduce delayed transfers of care and avoid unnecessary admission into hospital."

Earlier this year social services was accused by Hastings Labour MP Michael Foster of abdicating from its statutory duty to fund care places, robustly denied by the council.

It insisted there was no deliberate policy to block beds. It said it had funded an extra 100 residential and nursing home places costing £3 million earlier this year.

Mr Foster was not surprised at the scale of the fines. He acknowledged the council's steps to fund care places but said denying pensioners care places was wrong.

Mr Foster said: "I acknowledge East Sussex is cash-strapped but I cannot understand how it helps its cash flow to pay £100 a day fines when the cost of a care home is a lesser sum."