Actually, i don`t agree that dementia patients are blocking NHS beds. I have recently spent several hours every day for 12 days with my mum who had been put on the geriatric ward at the local hospital (she was under a different consultant due to cancer and not was not under the "geriatric" doctors). Anyway, of the other ladies in the ward, only one of them didn`t have dementia. They were all in there due to falls that they had had and the hospital was doing a very good job of sending them on their way to care homes or back to their houses with a care package in place. I listened to many a conversation between the patients and their families about the carehomes they were going to have to go do. Most of them took a lot of persuading but the care was put in place quickly in conjunction with the local council. I certainly wouldn`t say they were bedblocking.