CUTS to social care have led to a staggering 32 per cent rise in bed-blocking, a new study revealed yesterday.

NHS patients in England ready to be discharged were delayed by 1.81 million days due to a shortage of alternative care in 2015-16.

In contrast, the figure stood at 1.37 million in 2011-12.

General union GMB, which produced the figures from an analysis of NHS statistics, said Tory cuts to council budgets had hit social care hard.

“Bed-blocking is now a problem made in Downing Street and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are wholly responsible for it,” GMB national secretary Rehana Azam said.

“The severe cuts in local authorities’ social services provision is the major contributory factor for bed blocking getting worse. “Councils have not been able to accept the patients from the NHS because they have been starved of funds.”

A National Audit Office report last month found that bed-blocking was costing the NHS a whopping £820 million a year. The new figures show a rise in patient delays in every English region bar the north-east. The north-west saw a huge rise of 91,000.

The figures form part of a report adopted at GMB’s annual congress yesterday, GMB in the Care Sector: Campaigning to Prevent the Collapse of Social Care.The report said the care sector was characterised by low pay, chronic underfunding and increasing profiteering.

Only proper training, better staff pay and increased resources can reduce high-staff turnover and over-stretched facilities, the union says. It highlights that while 95 per cent of home care was provided by councils in 1993, this had fallen to 40 per cent in 2002 and currently stands at just 11 per cent.

“The government has refused to fund the NHS fairly and in recent years health spending has fallen well short of GDP,” Ms Azam added. “As the fifth-richest country, it’s dire how our old and vulnerable are being treated.”

The Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment.