0 the situation when someone, usually an older person, is using a bed in a hospital, although they no longer need to be there, because they do not have anywhere else to go where they can be cared for safely:
The first reason he mentions for bed-blocking is that patients, or their relatives, do not accept the first offer of a residential place if it is too far away.
The plan pledges to get rid of bed-blocking by improving intermediate care.
The whole notion of bed blocking seems to imply that older people enter hospital and then wilfully continue to occupy a bed which, in the views of staff, they no longer require.
