YOU report that advises that the rate of emergency bed use by patients aged over 75 has beaten the Scottish Government's target ("Health Secretary announces hundreds more beds for the elderly", The Herald, December 17).

This has jumped the gun.

First, the target set is to be achieved by April 2015, not in the current financial year. Secondly, the data is still rightly marked as "provisional" because of various unresolved data submission issues. Thirdly, the Information Services Division report advises that "the rate of emergency bed days is likely to increase in future publications."

In the article, the Scottish Health Secretary Shona Robison advises of a 200 increase in intermediate care beds to reduce pressure on acute beds particularly in Glasgow and Fife, and that "older people are staying in hospital too long because they are not getting the support they need to remain at home".

For many this extra move to unfamiliar intermediate care beds for frail elderly patients can undermine confidence, and be stressful and disorientating. An additional move to a new half-way house environment can exacerbate dementia symptoms, making a return home less likely.

An alternative person-centred option of extending intensive intermediate care support at home from a social care and health team, with family support, familiarity of environment, less risk of falls, usual diet, homely support underpinned by "ordinary living" principles, and, crucially, ongoing assessment and problem resolution in the patient's own home, has many advantages.

Richard Richardson,

Albert Road,

Glasgow.