SOME elderly patients have to stay longer than necessary in hospital because mean-spirited relatives want to save cash.

That is the shock claim of charity boss, Sheena Dunbar, director of Age Concern Waltham Forest, who says people are trying to save money by stalling the transfer of relatives from hospital to residential care homes.

And chiefs at Whipps Cross University Hospital say, with an "unprecedented" demand for its emergency services, hospital beds are needed so emergency patients can be admitted.

Ms Dunbar said: "I know that many people think it is wrong that older people have to pay for residential care and I have a lot of sympathy with this view.

"However, the current legal position is that an older person's financial circumstances do have to be taken into account and, where appropriate, a charge for all or part of the cost of residential care be made.

"Unfortunately, some older people and or their relatives try to minimise the cost by trying to delay the move from a hospital or other health care facilities to a residential care home. This is a serious issue both for the older person involved and for those older people waiting for, and in need of, a hospital or other health care facility bed."

She added that older people should only stay in hospital when it was necessary as infections could be picked up there and hospitals were not set up to provide long-term care.

Lucy Moore, Whipps Cross chief executive, said: "The hospital is experiencing unprecedented demand for its emergency services.

"The number of patients attending accident and emergency has increased by eight per cent since last year so we must ensure that there are sufficient beds to admit emergency patients quickly and safely.

"It is not good for patients to wait in hospital longer than they have to particularly with winter approaching."

John Wiltshire, head of older people's services at the council and the borough's primary care trust, said it was in the best interest of older people and their relatives for hospital beds to made available quickly for those who needed them.