A NEW care centre is set to be built in a bid to ease the return of elderly patients to their homes and free up hospital beds.

Many elderly patients currenlty face long stays in over-subscribed medical wards because of a lack of residential care home beds, or specific hospital units where they can be rehabilitated before going home.

The situation leads to bed blocking, where valuable hospital beds remain unavailable for patients on waiting lists awaiting treatment.

In Darlington the problem has recently been made worse by the closure of two private residential care homes. Further council-owned home closures are threatened.

It has been estimated that at least 60 extra care beds for the elderly are needed in County Durham and Darlington.

Now, in a bid to combat the problem, Darlington Primary Care Group has proposed building a 15-bed care unit on Hundens Lane in the town, which would give elderly people a stepping stone between hospital and their own homes.

Care unit project manager Dean Oliver said: "The facility would allow patients the time and the rehabilitation facilities to ensure they reach their full potential prior to decisions being made regarding their future care and support.

"It is also anticipated that this will help reduce hospital admission, enabling more appropriate use of acute hospital beds and reducing hospital discharge delays."

The new unit is expected to cost £540,00 to build and £407,00 a year to run with funding coming from social services, the primary care trust and other sources.

It is hoped the new unit will allow elderly people who have been ill to return home as soon as possible.

Elsewhere in the region health trusts have been working to try to combat bed blocking.

Last month in North Yorkshire, there was a meeting between health care agencies to discuss possible ways to spend a one-off £750,000 payment from the Government to ease the problem.

In North Durham there has been an attempt to solve the problem in the short-term by finding small areas in hospitals which can be turned into mini wards for elderly patients.

Darlington Primary Care Group will meet later this week to decide whether to commission the new unit and decide whether to build it next year or 2003.