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Shropshire social services has rejected a proposal that bed and breakfast accommodation on farms could be used to ease bed-blocking.

A project being researched by a local agricultural college is considering the feasibility of farmers providing accommodation for people to recuperate after leaving hospital.

The proposal by Harper Adams University College in Shropshire is one of a number of suggestions to help hard-pressed farmers.

Hannah Maher, project manager of the Convalescent and Recuperative Environment initiative, said that some farming families had a nursing or caring background and so may be able to help the health and social care sector.

But Shropshire Council has stated that it would not be associated with "any development which in any way put older people in situations that were not appropriately managed. There is a plethora of regulations and standards that rightly have to be achieved by service providers before the local authority will contract with them".

However, the council said it was interested in examining whether farms could offer support to those people with low levels of need in their own homes.