East Sussex care homes will continue to close after councillors threw the industry a lifeline of just £10 a week, owners have warned.

From today, owners will receive £239 a week per resident for residential care from the county council.

There will be an extra £15 a week to provide nursing care, taking it up from £342 to £357.

But East Sussex Residential Care Home Association chairman Tony Andrews said the increase would make little difference to the crisis facing care home owners in the light of tough new Government standards which come into force this month.

Mr Andrews said: "The county council is around £40 behind the rest of the country.

"If you are going to do the job properly and you have all the staff it costs a lot of money. This will help, and I think the council is doing its best, but more homes are going to close.

"Only last week we had another home close in Hastings and they had to find the residents places as far away as Luton because there was nowhere else for them to go.

"The net result of all this is, the elderly will end up back in hospitals. Bed blocking is nearly as bad as it was at Christmas."

Mr Andrews said 50,000 beds in residential care homes across the country had been lost since 1998 because owners could not afford to meet standards enforced by the National Care Standards Commission.

They include installing lifts in each home, widening door frames and providing en-suite bathrooms for each room.

He said: "We have lost these beds because of under-funding and owners knowing they could not meet draconian requirements.

"A lot of it is nonsense. It's going to involve a lot of paperwork"

East Sussex county councillor Keith Glazier, Cabinet member for social services, said: "The above-inflation increase will be of assistance in meeting additional costs."