A patient ready to be discharged from hospital had to wait NINE years before finally being able to leave.

The man, with complex care needs, was admitted after suffering a stroke and needed to move to a nursing home.

The shocking length of time he spent waiting in hospital was revealed after the M.E.N asked all hospital trusts in Greater Manchester how many bed days were lost due to delayed discharges over the last two years.

The man left waiting for nearly a decade was admitted to Fairfield Hospital in Bury  in July 1999. He was finally discharged and  moved to a home in 2008. He died a few weeks later.

It is understood staff from the hospital and local authority had tried to help his family find him alternative accommodation.

The figures obtained by the M.E.N also show at  least three other people from the region also spent more than a year in hospital unnecessarily.

A total of 110,179 bed days between April 2007 and March 2009 were lost  - costing taxpayers thousands.

The problem continues seven years after the government brought in a fees system - allowing hospitals to charge social services £100 for each day they lost to bed blocking - to tackle the issue. But only three trusts in the region claimed cash back.   

 Paul Mainwaring, chairman of the Manchester-based Patients' Council, said: "The evidence gathered by the M.E.N. clearly shows that the discharge practices for people with complex and long-term conditions are still in need of improvement.

"Leaving patients in hospital for these lengths of times is clearly not beneficial.

“This is also not what our highly-trained nurses and doctors are there for, let alone the costs of keeping people in hospital.

“It has long been a concern of the Patients' Council that too many patients are admitted to easily, or kept in hospital too long.

"In an era where our government is fixated on targets, it would seem that budgets are more important that the person's welfare, so we are sure if people had to pick up the cost of blocked beds, they will become unblocked very quickly."

Many trusts do not use the fines system but Wigan, Wrightington and Leigh used it to recoup £3,400, East Lancashire used it to generate £13,000 between 2007 and 2009 and Pennine Acute recouped £19,700 between 2008 and 2009.

A spokesman for Fairfield Hospital said they have now brought in a new discharge procedure which means no patient should wait more than three weeks before being discharged.

He said: "We are committed to reducing the number of patients who are delayed in hospital, even though they are medically fit to be discharged.

"We work with local primary care trusts and social care services to prevent patients being delayed within the discharge planning process.

"We have recently published a new single discharge policy which has been produced in collaboration with our local authorities and primary care trusts.

"The policy is a more streamlined process for discharging patients from all our hospitals, and an easier process for families, carers and the staff involved."

Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust had 351 cases of bed blocking in the last two years. Central Manchester Hospitals could have claimed 812 bed days during 2007/08, and 830 during 2008/09 but they have a policy not to claim the cash.

A spokesmen for Central Manchester Hospitals and Stockport Hospitals said they did not record how long individuals were delayed at their trusts.

Manchester Mental Health trust could not provide figures for how many bed days they lost due to delayed discharge.

Among the other delayed discharges are a patient being cared for by the East Cheshire NHS Trust who spent an extra two years four months on a ward and a patient of the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust who spent an extra 220 days in hospital.

Salford Royal kept a patient for an extra 155 days and Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust kept one for a year and nine months.