A POWERFUL committee of MPs has voiced concern about plans to "fine" Worcestershire social services departments that fail to cure "bed blocking".

Earlier this year, Health Secretary Alan Milburn said councils would be given a bill of up to £225 each day an elderly patient spends in hospital "unnecessarily".

The move is part of a drive to reduce delayed discharges - where elderly patients are fit to leave hospital but cannot be found places in care homes.

But, in a report, the House of Commons Health Select Committee warned Mr Milburn against pressing ahead with the proposal too quickly.

MPs said there was some "cautious support" for the idea - but it risked reinforcing a "negative blame culture".

They added: "We are especially concerned the underlying assumptions behind the charging proposals is that most delays in the system are the fault of social services.

"The causes of delay are complex - it is far from clear the issue can be resolved by such a crude solution."

The MPs criticised "very wide" regional variations in the number of people stuck in hospital beds.

They urged the NHS, social services and local councils to work more closely together to tackle the problem.

And the MPs warned that keeping patients in hospital unnecessarily could be putting them at risk.

In their report, they said: "We are firmly convinced that hospitals are often inappropriate, potentially harmful, as well as exceedingly expensive places to act simply as staging posts for people awaiting care home places."

They called on the Department of Health to publish guidelines to help hospitals reduce their number of inappropriate admissions.

The committee suggested that hospitals could also take firmer action by allowing nurses to discharge patients and employing patient discharge liaison managers to oversee the whole process.

They said: "Arrangements for the management of discharge need radical overhaul in many hospitals.

"In our view, best practice involves a multi-agency team actively managing all aspects of the discharge process."