...comes from shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox, as the government publishes figures showing an increase in the number of emergency readmissions.

"The government have only themselves to blame for this alarming level of emergency readmission.

"Labour's chronic mismanagement of the care home sector means hospitals have very many of their beds blocked by patients who have no where else to go. More and more patients are waiting to get into hospital and trusts are therefore under enormous pressure to discharge patients as quickly as possible.

"This has given rise to a truly bleak state of affairs. More than 500,000 patients had to be readmitted during this period. Ten health authorities saw increases of over 10 per cent in the number of patients readmitted. And almost one in every five health authorities had readmission rates of over 6.75 per cent.

"The Conservatives' have pointed out to the government countless times over the past two years that if they failed to tackle the care home crisis, the result would be bed blocking and increased readmission rates. Perhaps now they will start to listen."