Pensioners are to be handed hundreds of pounds to live at home rather than take up hospital beds.

The move, announced by Health Secretary Alan Milburn, aims to reduce bed-blocking, elderly patients taking up hospital beds when they are well enough to be discharged but still in need of some nursing care.

The money would be given to pay for care at home for pensioners prepared to leave hospital.

The exact sums have not been confirmed but the Department of Health said they would be one-off payments.

Hospitals in Sussex have long-running problems with bed-blocking, with local authorities at present responsible for arranging nursing home care.

Patients will be able to exercise choice over how they spend the cash.

It could pay for extra nursing care or adaptations to homes, such as the fitting of ramps, rails or stairlifts.

The move will be funded from the £1 billion set aside for the elderly from Chancellor Gordon Brown's comprehensive spending review last week.

It is part of a sustained Government drive to tackle bed-blocking, which has been blamed on the closure of dozens of care homes across the region.

Earlier this year, ministers announced plans to fine social services departments which failed to cure the problem.

Mr Milburn said councils would be given a bill for each day an elderly patient spends in hospital "unnecessarily".

This could be as much as £225 per day.

With beds at a premium, staff at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust are working at full stretch and the streams of holidaymakers expected to visit Brighton and Hove during the summer are expected to add to the pressure.

A spokesman for the Royal Sussex County Hospital said: "We have opened as many extra beds as we can manage but we are still very busy."