A FURTHER £1.5m is to be ploughed into tackling Oxfordshire’s chronic bed-blocking problem after an unexpected cash handout from the Government.

Oxfordshire County Council has been given a further £3.7m and will use £1.5m to ensure services are available so people can leave hospital, freeing up beds.

But it last night admitted the cash was a “very small” amount of the whole £171m adult social care budget. Users are facing cuts of £37m over the next four years.

Council spokesman Paul Smith said: “We are using the money primarily to help people stay at home, which is an important thing to do in itself.

“But as a by-product of that, the money could assist the bed-blocking situation.”

We reported in April how county bed-blocking had soared to new highs, with patients spending 4,742 days stuck in beds in March.

This ranked Oxfordshire the second worst performing local authority area in Britain, after Birmingham.

Of the rest of the £3.7m, about £1.2m is a reimbursement from ministers to the council for looking after young unaccompanied asylum seekers.

But council leader Keith Mitchell said the new cash was a “very small proportion” of the cash it needed and cuts were “still going to be difficult for everyone concerned”.

Extra funds could be handed over to the library budget in the next financial year.

The council proposed to shut 20 of its 43 libraries, but last month reversed that decision.