Blocked beds?

We had a lovely hospital in our town A beautiful building it was quite big 3 or 4 floors and out buildings for X-rays and other treatments there was a mortuary it was a proper hospital Then a lot of years ago they build a big ( then modern ) new hospital, massive about 6 miles out of town and used the smaller hospital for exactly what you are suggesting a recuperation hospital mainly for the elderly
Then some bright spark closed it down and it was left to go to rack and ruin, some businessman bought it to make flats housing etc that was about 12 years ago it still stands empty and ruined, a shadow, a blot on the landscape.
And the state of the art new, out of town hospital is now needing a lot of repairs re the building and also many additions and still the town hospital weeps its way into the ground empty and so sad

We have some of these types of facilities where I live in Canada. They're typically subacute units or restorative care units. We also have transition units, typically for people who are waiting for placement in a care home, to get them out of acute care beds.

Subacute and restorative care units are usually located in care homes or rehab facilities, while transition units may be in a regular hospital.

my small town does not even have a district nurse

In our area, we have two ‘main’ hospitals, not big city ones, but reasonably sized.

When my next door neighbour (in his 90’s) fell at home and broke his leg, he was in one of those for a few days, then moved into a smaller hospital in a nearby town. Far too big to be classed as a cottage hospital, but much more suitable for a couple of weeks recuperation, physio etc.

Sadly, he never got walking again, and has been in a nursing home ever since.

But it seems there are a few of these smaller places where people are sent to recover from surgery and suchlike.

A good idea.

Don't know why they did that in the first place. We do indeed need the old convalescent hospitals back again.

There is absolutely nowhere available for convalescent purposes as far as I can see in Britain. Years back there were even convalescent places (not hospitals per se - but veering in that direction) run by at least one of the major trade unions - and they don't seem to exist any longer either.

I was checking around the other day for a private naturecare place that used to exist - with a variety of complementary therapies - and even that doesn't exist any longer.

There's just a big fat nothing as far as I can see.

Absolutely no acknowledgment by our society at all these days that people might basically be better - but need somewhere on the spectrum between a hospital and "life as per normal" for a week or two whilst their health fully recovers.

Aveline the use of the old cottage hospitals and convalescent homes has so often been proposed I can only think that so-called “modern” nursing practices have deemed them unsuitable.
It makes sense to me now, it made sense then, but I fear it’s a forlorn hope.