The purpose of this study is to assess the number and need of health and welfare services of the latent bedridden elderly in the community using the new criteria developed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. A survey conducted in Ayase city revealed 145 bedridden elderly, out of which 52 were receiving home care (the home visit group), but 44 were the newly detected cases with not-receiving any services (the newly detected group). Comparing these two groups, conditions of the bedridden elderly seemed to be more severe for the home visit group, but there were no significant differences in conditions of caregivers for either group. For the newly detected group, information on health and welfare services had been provided by public health nurses, and more than half applied for some services.These results suggest that the role of public health nurses in both the case finding and delivery of the services is important.