YESTERDAY, we wrote about the urgent need to ensure that cuts in public spending do not affect the quality of care given to elderly and vulnerable people.

Today, we report a disturbing case which reveals just how real that danger is.

Eighty-one-year-old great-grandfather Michael Fitzsimmons, from Clifton, has dementia and complex needs.

Until recently, he was being looked after in a care home in York.

But Mr Fitzsimmons was taken into York Hospital when he became ill with pneumonia.

Now, six weeks later, his daughter Debra Edwards says he is effectively stranded there. The care home where he was being looked after says it is no longer equipped to care for him.

Instead, he has been offered a place in a care home in Hornsea - almost 45 miles away.

That is simply unacceptable. Of course we understand the difficulties of finding suitable care places for those with the most complex needs.

But for a vulnerable patient like Mr Fitzsimmons, surely being near to family is especially important?

Mrs Edwards visits her father every day and helps him to eat.

How could she possibly do that if she had to make a round trip of 90 miles every day?

Mr Fitzsimmons would be effectively denied the comfort of his daughter's daily presence just when he most needed it.

Bed blocking - in which hospital beds are occupied by vulnerable people who don't really need them simply because there is nowhere else for them to go - is nothing new.

The Vale of York clinical commissioning group points out that sometimes, services are "not available as locally as patients and their families would prefer."

Well, that's not good enough. York Outer MP Julian Sturdy says he is concerned about the lack of transparency in this case.

Someone needs to sort this situation out - and quickly.