Senior Citizens? Old Age Pensioners? Third Agers? What is the least offensive of those synonyms for people who finally admit to having passed middle age?

Well, whatever you call them it would be hard to find anything as insulting as the epithet bestowed on them by hospitals recently when they were dubbed 'Bed Blockers'.

This charming title was liberally used in the recent report The Way To Go Home, which looked at the problem of older patients who had no real need of further hospital treatment but were too old or frail to be sent home without a strong support network.

Many of them will not have received enough physiotherapy to enable them to become fully mobile. Others, who have had strokes for example, may not have been shown how to exercise their stricken limbs so as to get the best out of what residual power they have.

It is a vicious circle, with the hospital putting pressure on the doctors and nurses to discharge patients as quickly as possible so as to free up beds, the patients thus not getting enough time to get as fit as they should be before being sent home and then once at home being effectively short-changed by the rehabilitation services, the Cinderella of the NHS.

The report from the powerful Audit Committee says the answer lies not so much in more hospital beds, but in better, prompt and effective home support.

It refers to the need for a 'dynamic service, bridging the divide between the stay in hospital and the patient going back home'.

To expect anything dynamic between any of the NHS services is pushing hope and expectation to the limits in most cases. Not in all, however.

Bradford has a properly-intergrated stroke rehabilitation service with patients being moved to a specialist unit once initial medical treatment has been properly settled and a regime initiated.

The programme is geared to the patient's special needs, giving confidence to go on to lead as full a life as possible.

In North Devon, special re-ablement teams working in the community have been able to reduce hospital admissions among the elderly and shorten the stay for those who require in-patient care.

If one NHS authority can do such a good job of breaking the vicious circle and bring hope to those in need, it should not be beyond the bounds of possibility that others might learn from it.

Then the older generation might avoid such harsh titles as 'Bed Blockers' and be treated with the dignity they deserve, especially when the fault is with the system and not the patients.

What should not be overlooked in these situations is the fact that as the patients get older so do their husbands, wives, sons and daughters, their likely carers.

They are often distraught at the thought that, try as they may, they do not feel able to give their loved ones the care which they know they need.

The Government has indicated that an expansion of intermediate care systems for the elderly is on the stocks, but there is no clear statement as to how they may be implemented.

The report is due to be featured in the NHS National Plan due at the end of July.

If there is no action - Bed Blockers to the barricades.