HEALTH chiefs are concerned at Durham County Council's plans to close 17 of its 25 residential homes for the elderly.

This month South Durham NHS trust had to delay discharging 67 of its patients from its seven hospitals. Nineteen were in Darlington Memorial and 48 in County Durham's area.

The second week of October was the busiest with a number of patients having to be "boarded out" on their wards.

Ms Laura Robson, the director of nursing told Monday's trust board meeting that medical admissions had had to be transferred from Darlington to Bishop Auckland for one night in order to manage emergencies. Fourteen patients had been transferred to the Richardson hospital at Barnard Castle.

She said Darlington social services had been given a Government one-off sum of £152,000 and County Durham received £894,000 to try to solve the problem of discharge delays, working with the private sector. Discussions were continuing to decide the best way to tackle the bed crisis in the community.

Ms Robson later scotched a suggestion that Darlington Memorial Hospital might open up a ward to relieve the congestion. She pointed out that there was no cash available for such a move.

The board also received a consultation document from County Durham revealing its radical long term plans to tackle the problems of an ageing population.

But Mr John Saxby, the trust's chief executive, said: "I think we will express a degree of concern about how this will impact in reality on the present situation.

"This is mainly because of what we have seen happen in Darlington, where it has had to postpone its closure programme.

"But it still intends to go through with it, because the homes are too expensive to bring up to modern standards.

"However they have to recognise we can't close because we haven't got the space or services for the people who need them.

"We may have to seek reassurance from County Durham social services over this."

Mr Colin Morris, Darlington's director of social services, said this week he had advertised for private companies to help run residential homes, but there was still a major problem with a lack of nursing beds.