Six cancer patients had their operations cancelled at Addenbrooke's as a result of the hospital being full due to bed blocking and the norovirus.

Bed blocking is set to cost the county’s taxpayer £631,000 in fines by the end of this financial year, Cambridge First can reveal.

Now a Cambridgeshire county councillor is calling for a review to investigate the problem.

It follows this newspaper’s revelation that six cancer patients had their operations cancelled at Addenbrooke’s Hospital as a result of bed blocking.

Dr Gareth Goodier, chief executive of Addenbrooke’s, said it was the first time the situation had led to cancer patients having their operations rearranged.

This came about as a result of the hospital simply being too full.

He blamed a combination of delayed discharges – where a patient is deemed medically fit for discharge but there is not the NHS or social care in place for them to leave hospital – and the norovirus outbreak which led to a lack of hospital beds available.

The patients – who were either waiting to have tumours removed, have “complex surgery” for reconstruction or undergo procedures to determine whether they indeed have cancer – are believed to have since had their operations.

For each day a Cambridgeshire patient stays in hospital when there is no longer a medical need, a fine of £100 must be paid to the hospital from a joint budget made up of contributions from Cambridgeshire County Council and NHS Cambridgeshire.

A total of £511,000 was set aside from the council’s £158.6 million adult social care budget to pay fines for delayed discharges – often referred to as bed blocking.

By the end of March (the end of the 2011-12 financial year) the fines are expected to stand at £631,000.

While Cambridgeshire County Council agreed a total adult social care budget of £188.5 million on Tuesday, it has yet to decide how much to set aside in the 2012-13 budget to pay for fines for delayed discharges.

Cllr Caroline Shepherd is a member of the county council’s adults wellbeing and health overview and scrutiny committee.

She has called for a review and volunteered to head up a member-led review into the problem.

Cllr Shepherd, a Liberal Democrat county councillor for Trumpington, said: “No one is doubting this is a tricky and difficult problem but you don’t tackle it by budgeting for it.

“It’s budgeting for failure.

“Delayed discharges are a huge problem at Addenbrooke’s, which gets very full, and they have got to manage every bed properly.

“It’s no wonder they fine us.”

Cllr Shepherd said the money set aside to pay the hospital fines should instead be used to tackle the problem, for example by hiring extra social workers to carry out assessments on elderly patients quicker.

Cllr Martin Curtis, portfolio holder for adult social care at Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “My aspiration is that the figures will be lower next year.

“We are working really closely to minimise the problem of delayed discharges and the issues surrounding them are incredibly complex.

“There can be caused by a number of reasons, which are the responsibility of several different agencies. These include the need to identify ongoing medical or social care.

“We continue to work with health partners to ensure that expenditure on fines is minimised.”

Addenbrooke’s reported that there were a total of 2,735 lost bed days to Cambridgeshire patients from October to December 2011 – a 91 per cent rise from 1,430, for the same period in 2010.

On Friday there were 65 patients in Addenbrooke’s – equivalent to three wards full – who were deemed by doctors as ready to leave hospital but remained as inpatients as there was not a care package in place.

A spokesman for the hospital said: “Although we have had constructive meetings with partners, we still have 65 patients in hospital who no longer need treatment and who should be looked after in the community.

“We must have beds available for patients who require acute care.”