An elderly patient whose plight we highlighted earlier this month has finally been given a place in a nursing home.

Ronald Billinghurst is now settled at the home near Horsham after waiting more than five months in hospital.

Mr Billinghurst, 83, has senile dementia and needs 24-hour specialist care.

He was taken to Worthing Hospital early in May with a broken leg and had to stay there until the middle of this month because social services could not afford a nursing home place for him.

We reported on his plight early in October and his son David's increasing frustration about the delays in transferring his father.

Mr Billinghurst, of Manor Road, Hurstpierpoint, said today: "A week after the story appeared, everything started to happen and a place was found for him."

Mr Billinghurst's story is one of several across Sussex where a critical shortage of nursing home places and lack of money to pay for places has left hospitals full of patients waiting to be discharged.

The Government has recently given social services departments in Sussex extra cash to target the "bed blocking" problem and increase payments to nursing homes so patients can be moved on from hospital faster.