Hospitals taking legal action to evict patients accused of 'bed blocking' The policy was revealed amid growing concerns over the pressures on hospitals - with Accident and Emergency departments across the country said to be in "meltdown." This is partly a result of bed-blocking, because it prevents patients being moved from A&E to other wards. Figures earlier this week showed that bed-blocking had reached record levels, with doctors unable to discharge 1,000 patients every day. The crisis has deepened because of a lack of council-provided care for the elderly. And over the past two weeks, overwhelmed casualty departments have begun pleading with the public to stay away unless they are seriously ill. Managers at Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals said the eviction policy was in place across Dorset and that they hoped other trusts - including Poole and Dorset County- would follow suit. Trust spokesman Katie Whiteside told BBC Radio Solent: "We have relatives coming back telling us they don't like the decor of care homes, or they don't like the member of staff who met them at the door. "Sometimes they are decorating the house or having a "granny annexe" built and they know that, while the patients are here, they are being fed, watered and looked after." She added that one family asked the hospital to "keep hold" of a relative while they took a two-week holiday in Turkey. We would be in a position to commence formal proceedings to actually evict them from their beds if that was necessary. It would be an absolute last resort. If we had to go through the courts we would seek to recover costs (from relatives) of up to £50,000, so it's serious stuff. It is understood the trust would use anti-trespassing laws to evict patients, although managers would not confirm this. Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, told the Daily Mail: "Hospital beds are very valuable, they are not there for elderly relatives to be parked in until it is convenient. Hospitals have got to do this, they are very overcrowded. In 2011, two other trusts, Aintree University Foundation Trust and Southport and Ormskirk Hospital Trust, both on Merseyside, threatened to use similar powers to Bournemouth to alleviate bed-blocking. In Oxfordshire, taxpayers have had to pay hospitals more than £200,000 in fines because of bedblocking. Hospitals outside of Oxfordshire have used national powers to levy £120-a-day fines against Oxfordshire County Council. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show the council was fined £226,440 for 174 patients from 2011 to the end of August this year, including £5,040 for one person stuck in a bed for 42 days last year. Hospitals have reached record levels of crowding, according to official figures, prompting fears that the NHS is on the brink of a winter crisis. Consultants said the crowding was making it difficult to operate safely, with some hospitals so full that they were brought "almost to their knees." Dr Cliff Mann, the president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said he feared that the NHS was heading towards a winter crisis.