PRINCESS Margaret Hospital has welcomed a Government cash injection of more than £260,000 to stave off a winter crisis.

The money will be used to free hospital beds for seriously ill people, by allowing social services to pay for more places for elderly people in private care homes.

Latest figures for this month reveal that there are around 50 people occupying trust beds who should have been discharged.

Although the figure fluctuates, every month there are a significant number of delayed discharges at the trust's hospitals, a problem which gets worse during the winter months.

In one month this year, PMH lost 2,011 bed days because 136 patients who had finished their treatment could not be sent home.

As a result, 18 operations had to be cancelled at the last minute, and a total of 160 newly-admitted and acutely ill patients were cared for temporarily on trolleys because beds on the wards could not be found for them.

Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust, which runs PMH, is currently funding the use of 22 beds at Badbury Court and nine at Whitbourne House, for elderly people who are well enough to be discharged from hospital.

To further alleviate the pressure on the system, the trust is building a 60-bed intensive rehabilitation centre next to the new Great Western Hospital, which should be opened in November next year.

The latest grant of £262,000 has been given to Swindon Council's social services department by the Department of Health, and will create more bed places in nursing homes.

Council spokeswoman Sarah Deacon said the sum was more than expected.

She said: "We will now undertake negotiations with the NHS to establish how the money can be put to proper use."

PMH spokesman Chris Birdsall said: "We are very pleased that Swindon has received this money.

"It will supplement work already done in this area to increase the number of beds available to us to which we can discharge patients.

"We are now working with the private sector to extend the beds available. There are homes out there so we will look into buying some beds in those places.

"Delayed discharges have been one of the main problems facing the NHS in recent years as it leads to logjams in the system.

"Anything that can enable us to speed up the discharge of patients who are ready to move on has to be a good thing."