Darlington social services is facing a financial crisis after being ordered to review the care needs of hundreds of "forgotten" nursing home patients.

Last week, social services chiefs received a government order to reassess the needs of 212 nursing home residents currently funded by the Department of Social Security - patients the local authority did not even know existed.

All were given preserved rights under the Tories' NHS and Community Care Act 1993, and have never had their care needs or payments reviewed.

Hartlepool has an estimated 88 such patients while Newcastle has been told it has 200.

Mr Colin Morris, director of Darlington social services, knew nothing about the 212 preserved rights patients on his patch until two weeks ago when their details were faxed by the DSS.

Now staff have to reassess their needs and find appropriate care for those who need different facilities from the care they were given ten years ago. Any extra costs must be picked up by the local authority.

He said: "A year ago there were apparently 252 of these people but some have died.

"Half the remaining patients have learning difficulties while the rest have varying forms of mental health needs. That is all we know at the moment. The one clear thing is that any extra costs have to be found by social services without extra funding from the government.

"We are furiously trying to find out what the financial implications for us will be but we know they will be staggering.

"As you can imagine, it is causing an enormous amount of anxiety for us, patients and the nursing homes.

"Some of these people may already be receiving top-up payments from the health authority so any uplift in costs will impact on local health budgets too."

The extra patients, who must be assessed by April 2, 2002, will increase the number of people in care in Darlington by 50pc.

"This is a massive amount and will put a strain on an already very tight budget," added Mr Morris.

Mrs Blair's task

CHERIE Blair was yesterday officially opening a £330,000 breast unit at North Tees hospital in Stockton. The new unit brings together the breast screening service, covering the whole of Teesside and parts of North Yorkshire and South Durham, and the breast clinic.