THE political row has deepened within the Labour party over the winter crisis at the Royal Bolton Hospital — after one of the town’s MPs called on the council to “get its act together”.

David Crausby, Labour MP for Bolton North East, says he received figures last week from the chairman of Bolton NHS Foundation which showed 64 patients were waiting for social care support — either from a social worker or to be taken to a residential care home — before they could be discharged.

Labour-run Bolton Council has strongly denied there was a problem with "bed blocking" from patients waiting for local authority support — while the hospital says the figure relates to patients "who don’t need to be in hospital".

Health bosses at the Royal Bolton declared a major incident last week, cancelling all non-emergency operations and urging people not to go to A&E as the number of patients outstripped the bed capacity on wards.

Mr Crausby said: “I got the figure from David Wakefield, chairman of the trust, who said it was the equivalent of three wards full.

“The main point I am making is that there is a crisis in social care.

“I don’t care what the council say, there is a crisis and I don’t care whose fault it is.

“What we have to do is get the NHS and social care together a lot more and that is gradually happening.

"There should be the same organisation looking at home we look after these people better.

“There is a crisis in social care, it is between the NHS and local authority and they need to get their act together.”

In a blog on his website Mr Crausby also reiterated the claim that 64 patients were waiting to go home but without the social care support available to discharge them.

Labour councillor Christopher Peacock, the cabinet member in charge of adult social care at Bolton Council, said the social care staff at the council were doing a "fantastic job" under difficult circumstances.

He said: “I do not know where Mr Crausby got his figure from but I can confirm that, from the information I have seen, there were not 64 patients waiting for social care support from Royal Bolton Hospital on Tuesday.

“Since Bolton Council reviewed and redesigned our intermediate care services we are now assisting more people than ever out of hospital.

“Considering the financial pressures the council is facing this is a magnificent achievement and the credit lies with our fantastic staff.”

Bolton Council, Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group and the trust are jointly putting together a discharge team so the needs of patients can be assessed by one team, rather than several different agencies.

Heather Edwards, head of communications at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said there was a variety of reasons why it was difficult to discharge patients.

She said: “They may include waiting for test results, waiting for medication to take home, availability of transport, availability of a place or support in the community or families wanting a particular nursing home.”

Mr Wakefield was unavailable for comment.