MONEY put aside to deal with bed-blocking has not been used, members of a health board have been told.

The Newport Local Health Board (LHB) received cash from the Welsh Assembly in the autumn to move 10 people out of hospitals, its members heard.

The director of development and commissioning, Andrea Phillips, told the board that only five people were moved.

She said: "A condition of that money was that patients had to have been delayed in hospital more than 57 days, and all of these were classified as elderly mentally ill (EMI)."

"There are big gaps in EMI provision in New port. "We managed to re-designate five independent sector beds for EMI, but that was all. We weren't able to spend all the money."

Fifty-seven Newport patients were classed as bed-blockers at the end of December, out of 246 across Gwent.

The biggest reason for bed-blocking is social care issues, such as lack of cash for councils to fund residential or nursing home placements, or to adapt patients' homes.

The meeting heard that the Assembly had ring-fenced almost £20m - a pre-Budget windfall from Chancellor Gordon Brown - for Welsh local health authorities to spend on moving bedblockers.

But members were told that simply throwing money at the problem of bed-blocking, just to move people out of hospital, was a waste of time. A long-term, properly funded redesign of social care was needed, said Ellis Williams, Newport Social Service's head of resourcing support and co-ordination.

He saids there should be an emphasis on avoiding hospital admission, or people's needs should be met when they are discharged, be it to their own homes or elsewhere.

Mr Williams told the LHB that Newport's share of the Assembly's £20m was "peanuts" compared to the scale of the problem.

"There is no short-term fix. We will never crack it as long as it is looked at as just a matter of getting people out of beds," he said.

"It is too late now to be just throwing money at the problem. It needs a fundamental redesign of social care."