TWO elderly women have cost the NHS about £500 a day to keep them in hospital beds for the past two years -- despite there being no medical reason for doing so.

It has emerged that the patients have been in Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital, but that a court action has now been launched by hospital managers to get one of them moved to a home, rather than the NHS footing the care bill.

In the other case, the hospital trust is taking legal advice from its solicitors.

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust said both women had been well enough to go home since April, 2004, but there had been difficult "family issues" which it could not divulge.

The cost of an NHS bed in general medicine is about £246 a day. The pair's unnecessary extended stay has cost the cash-strapped hospital trust about £359,000.

Also blocking a bed at the RHCH is 92-year-old Vera Hill, from Alresford, who is desperate to go home after a nine-month stay.

But Mrs Hill, who was declared medically fit about a month ago, is stuck in hospital until Hampshire County Council organises two home carers three times a day to help her dress, wash and prepare meals.

The widow, who lives alone, fears the only way she will get out of hospital is "in a box".

The retired primary school cook, who worked for the county council for 25 years, said: "They want me to go into a nursing home, but I may as well stay here.

"I want to go to my own home. I want to be independent."

The great-grandmother, who walks with the assistance of a Zimmer frame, added: "I will go daft if I don't get out of here.

"The nursing staff have been wonderful, but nine months is a very long time."

Mrs Hill was admitted for a routine operation to drain a serious infection from her knee last August, and expected to be home within days.

But she suffered a series of setbacks which confined her to bed for longer and delayed her recovery, including an aspirin-related complication.

Finally, doctors declared her well enough to go home on March 31, but her walking has deteriorated during her long hospital stay.

On The Mount temporary rehabilitation ward, elderly patients sit beside their beds from about 7am to 8pm.

They have physiotherapy but there is no day room for them to eat together or socialise.

Doctor Chris Gordon, consultant physician in medicine and elderly care, said: "The current main stumbling block is we can't find carers in the Alresford area.

"If the carers had been there, I think we could have got Mrs Hill home about a month ago, but it would not have been safe to send her home earlier without an extensive care package."

County councillor Patricia Banks, executive member for adult social care, said every effort was being made to organise a care package and alterations to the patient's home, such as a wheelchair ramp.

"We are hopeful that, with this appropriate level of care in place, Mrs Hill will be able to return home within the next two weeks," she added.

About 25 people who are well enough to go home were blocking beds at the RHCH last month -- the equivalent to an entire ward.

Councils face fines of £100 per day if they fail to provide alternative accommodation for patients stuck unnecessarily in hospital.

But the fines only apply to delayed discharges on acute wards, not in rehabilitation wards, although that is where much of the bed-blocking occurs.

Last year, Hampshire County Council was fined £120,000 by the RHCH.

A spokesman for Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust said great progress was being made in reducing delayed discharges.

She said: "At the end of March, 2005, we had 44 patients in hospital beds who were well enough to be discharged. A year on, the figure was 25.

"This progress is the result of joint work between the NHS and the local authority, as well as a revised discharge policy.

"It is in all our interests for patients to be discharged as soon as they are well enough to leave.

"The Royal Hampshire County and Andover War Memorial hospitals regularly have the lowest MRSA rates in the country, but even so, a long stay in hospital does increase the risk of infection.

"In addition, a long stay in hospital does not help patients maintain their independence, morale and mobility."