HEALTH chiefs have been given a major cash boost to cure the increasing headache of "bed blocking" by elderly hospital patients.

The £350,000 windfall, which has come from the Government's Challenge Fund, will also be spent on improving mental health services in the district.

East Lancashire Health Authority will use £106,000 of the cash on continuing care schemes to free hospital beds currently blocked by elderly patients.

The remaining £250,000 will be spent on boosting mental health care in East Lancashire.

The cash will be spent on:

Intensive care at home: £71,600. The scheme will be run by the Burnley NHS Trust. A team of four nurses will provide specialist and intensive care for people in their own homes, meaning patients may be able to return home sooner than expected and may even be able to avoid admission altogether.

Extension of hospital at home scheme: £24, 667. Run by the CommuniCare NHS Trust to enable people, particularly stroke or fractured hip patients, to be discharged from hospital earlier than would otherwise be possible by giving them extensive support at home while they recover.

The scheme has been operating on a trial basis in Hyndburn, but can now be expanded to Blackburn and Darwen.

Hospice at home: £9,667. A pilot scheme has been running in Blackburn and Darwen by the CommuniCare NHS Trust. This extra cash will allow the scheme to be continued and will complement the existing support available to patients in their own homes.

Mental health: £250,700. Community mental health teams will be developed across the whole of East Lancashire.

The money, the biggest allocation for mental health in the region, will lead to an improvement and expansion of services. The money will also allow an out-of-hours service to develop.

Richard Crail, chief executive of East Lancashire Health Authority, said: "As always our priority is to provide the best possible quality of care for local people and this Challenge Fund money will enable us to extend and develop schemes at a faster pace than would otherwise have been possible."

Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell released the additional cash for "priority services" as part of a £50 million package to ease nationwide problems.

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