Around 10,000 hospital beds are currently occupied by elderly people owing to a lack of available care workers to look after them at home, NHS leaders have warned.
Senior figures said hospitals were "grinding to a halt" because of a growing crisis in social care, which has left "staggering" numbers of frail and vulnerable people stuck on wards for weeks on end.
Experts said shortages of care home staff - with an estimated loss of around 70,000 such workers in six months - had left hospitals overcrowded, even before winter starts and amid fears the growth of the omicron variant could make things worse.
Comment: Knowing the harm the vaccine mandates are having on patients due to dangerously low care home staffing levels, why doesn't the government and the healthcare bosses reverse the ruling? A report from the House of Lords recently revealed that there was no benefit in mandating vaccines on NHS healthcare staff, so why should it apply to care home staff?
It's likely because the government and NHS bosses are willing to sacrifice elderly patients and victimize their carers, but they know if were they to do the same to NHS the publicity generated by respected staff, and the outcry from the public, might put a halt (however temporary) to their ideological agenda.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: "From our conversations with NHS trust leaders we think around 1 in 10 beds are now occupied by people who are medically fit to be discharged; that's around 10,000 beds."
Before the start of pandemic, NHS trusts regularly published figures assessing the number of people - largely elderly - who were stuck in hospital, waiting for assessment, or help from care workers.
Since then, data publication has been stopped.
Comment: They stopped publishing the data because it exposed the narrative that hospital beds were full of people sick 'with' Covid. Although, this deception didn't work because other data revealed that not only were most hospitals caring for up to 15% less patients, but the vast majority of patients, as an NHS director confessed, were in hospital for reasons other than the coronavirus.
But NHS trust leaders believe that the crisis has escalated sharply in recent months, and is now a major factor heaping pressures on hospitals.
Mr Hopson said: "Many of the risks that are most visible are at the front door of the hospital; the ambulance handover delays, the long trolley waits in accident and emergency departments.
"But this is very significantly driven by delays discharging patients from hospitals, and we really need to see radical action here. Hospitals need as much help as possible to tackle this in order to avoid them grinding to a halt."
Staff leaving care sector for better-paid jobs
NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, has already called on ministers to offer bonuses of up to £1,000 to social care workers, warning that too many staff are opting for other sectors, such as hospitality, with more lucrative rewards.
Comment: It's highly unlikely that, all of a sudden, 70,000 care home have left to the more 'lucrative' hospitality sector. Because the hospitality sector has repeatedly warned that many businesses are struggling and they'll go under if another lockdown is imposed. So, whilst there may be hospitality jobs, it may be a bit better paid, and there's less pressure, there's no job security, and it doesn't explain the seemingly sudden exodus of careworkers.
The vast majority of careworkers have or are leaving because of the deadly mismanagment throughout the manufactured coronavirus crisis leading work to become even more unbearable than it already was - and whistleblower staff have reported just that - as well as because of the vaccine mandates, which, according to the House of Lords report, will directly result in 126,000 staff qutting.
Mr Hopson urged ministers to look again at the proposal, warning that NHS hospitals are now having to deploy their own staff to take on care duties in the community, in order to free up hospital beds.
He said that while the workforce crisis may have been exacerbated by the introduction of compulsory jabs for care workers, the vast majority of it seemed to be linked to more attractive rewards in other sectors.
NHS chiefs warned that long stays in hospital could lead to a significant deterioration in the long-term prospects of elderly patients.
It follows warnings that among the most elderly, a 10-day stay in hospital could equate to a decade's ageing, in terms of lost muscle mass.
Comment: That's just one metric; a lack of social interaction, exposure to a higher risk environment, to name but two other factors, will take a significant toll on health.
Last week ministers published a social care green paper, setting out a vision to reform the sector.
But charities and MPs said the plans lacked substance, with former health secretary Jeremy Hunt saying that without further measures and investment "we will continue to see hospital wards full of people who should be discharged and older people not getting the care they need".
Government 'starving social care of investment'
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, told The Telegraph: "The staggering numbers of older people now stuck in hospital when medically fit to leave are what happens when a Government starves social care of the investment it needs, of all times during a pandemic.
"Despite the appearance of government activity as regards social care this autumn, nothing fundamental has changed."
Comment: On the contrary, healthcare provision for the vulnerable has reached new depths of neglect, the repeated issuance of Do Not Resuscitate orders being a prime example.
Ms Abrahams said that since the Prime Minister's pledge to "fix social care, once and for all" two years ago your situation has actually worsened.
"The Prime Minister may have announced a cap on sky high care costs, but no one will reach it until 2026, while the Care White Paper sets out a long term vision, but without any plan to achieve it.
"Meanwhile, the key problems holding care back today remain almost entirely unaddressed: chronic shortages of public funds and of staff, and in fact both are getting worse.
"At Age UK we are hearing from more and more older people who can't get care in their area, usually because there aren't the people to provide it, so it isn't just those in hospital who are struggling to access the support they need."
Last week the directors of adult social services published data suggesting 400,000 older and disabled people are waiting for such assessments at home.
Mr Hopson said escalating problems in social care were compounding growing Covid pressures on hospitals, in a situation that is feared may worsen amid the spread of the omicron variant.
Comment: Little of what we're seeing is due to 'Covid' pressure. Lockdown restrictions removed up to 10% of beds; fearmongering meant GPs and patients cancelled critical appointments; and now GPs have been told that they should divert their resources away from crucial primary care to the jab roll out, for the next FOUR months: Gov't, NHS & GPs strike deal to provide LESS care & prioritize Covid 'booster' injections
Hundreds of Covid patients stuck in hospital
Separately, an NHS whistleblower said health service figures suggest that hundreds of Covid patients are stuck in hospital, despite being medically well.
The NHS official told the Planet Normal podcast that around one in 10 Covid patients remain stuck on hospital beds for want of social care.
Latest figures show around 6,000 Covid patients in hospital in England.
Comment: They're not 'Covid patients', the vast majority are patients in hospital for other reasons but have tested positive for Covid. However, the impact of the experimental injection roll out appears to be shifting these numbers somewhat, with people either suffering worse infections, or vaccine induced damage.
But the senior official said around 750 these are medically fit for discharge, but stuck in hospital for lack of care at home, or a care home place - giving a false impression of how much of the pressure was caused by Covid.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said "We are working hard to support safe and timely hospital discharges, and have invested £478million to help get patients out of hospital and into the best place for their care and support to continue.
"Alongside this, we've supported care homes and providers with a £162.5million workforce retention and recruitment fund, put £500 million into boosting staff training, qualifications and wellbeing, and are continuing to help attract people into a career in care through our national social care recruitment campaign."
I can see trouble on the horizon. In fact, it appeared on the horizon a while ago, and is now knocking at the gates.