A DECISION to grant planning permission for a new nursing home will lead to hospital beds being freed up.

That is the verdict of two senior figures in Swindon and Marl-borough NHS Trust.

Philip Page, owner of the Kingsdown Lodge nursing home for elderly people in Stratton St Margaret, has been given permission to build another unit, with 79 beds, nearby.

The council's planning committee gave permission, in spite of its own officials urging rejection on the grounds that it infringed planning policies.

Among the voices urging them to grant permission was NHS trust chief executive Sonia Mills, and trust operations director Lyn Hill-Tout backed them up.

Ms Hill-Tout said today: "If we are to provide the right care in the right place, then nursing homes have a key role to play, because once we have done all we can for a patient in hospital, it is important that they are able to move on.

"This is not only so the patient can go on to receive the next stage of their care in the environment most suited to it, but also to free up much-needed beds for new patients coming through.

"At present, we have more than 60 patients who are well enough to leave hospital but do not have anywhere to go where they will receive the appropriate level of aftercare.

"There are 60 beds to which we can discharge people but obviously these are not all empty, so it is vitally important for us as a trust to have more places for our patients to go once they are ready to leave hospital.

"Despite everyone's best efforts, we still have patients who would not be with us if there was more capacity."

Sonia Mills wrote in her letter to the planning committee: "The difficulties of discharging people from the hospital are often due to lack of appropriate places available in the community.

"This is exacerbated when nursing homes have been closing locally, as those residents currently accommodated in those homes obviously have to take first precedence over patients with newly-ascertained needs."