Care needs funds not just words

From: Mike Padgham, Chairman, Independent Care Group (York and North Yorkshire), Eastfield House, Scarborough.

I WOULD agree wholeheartedly with much of what Jeremy Hunt says about the care of older people in this country (Yorkshire Post, October 19).

However, there is one glaring omission and it is the word the Government doesn’t want to talk about – funding.

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Older people feeling lonely and even worse being abused is not acceptable in a sophisticated society like ours.

Yes, we do need a change in attitude to the way we care for older people, but it is a change that must cut across the whole of society and that includes the Government.

We live in a very mobile society, where families move around the country and cannot always be close by to provide the care for older relatives that Mr Hunt’s utopian vision sees.

So when we cannot provide that family care, we have to ensure that as a society we provide the next best thing, which is properly-funded, professional and compassionate social care.

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As a body we have been saying for more than 20 years that, as a country, we do not invest enough in social care and that it is a Cinderella profession compared to others.

We have called endlessly for the type of national debate that Mr Hunt now seeks.

Instead freezing or reducing the amount of money councils are able to spend on commissioning care was bound to exacerbate an already stretched sector.

The result is that fewer and fewer people are now getting care, some are reduced to 15-minute visits and staff are on low wages and going without the extra training we would like them to have to improve the care on offer.

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The time is long overdue when we have to wake up and accept that we have to invest more into the way social care is commissioned, whether that is by switching resources from other things or taxation.

Until Mr Hunt and his Government colleagues accept that, then speeches like that made today will just be words on a newspaper page.

From: Graham Branston, Emmott Drive, Rawdon.

it is hardly surprising that too frequently we hear about unacceptable inadequacies in personal service provisions for older people, whether they are about someone left for hours on a bed in a hospital corridor or disgraceful personal care.

You can never discount the incompetent or even cruel traits in some individuals, but it seems to me the underpinning factor is inadequate funding for services that do not contribute to the nation’s GDP but nevertheless, require significant resources.

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This also applies to state pensions. Successive governments since the Second World War have known about the post-war baby boom, but done little to plan effectively for the long term costs of an aging population.

Popular short term fixes to catch votes have been the norm with a lamentable lack of long term financial planning.

Spiteful attitude

From: Sylvia Barnard, North Park Road, Leeds.

I WAS sickened by the letter from John Watson (Yorkshire Post, October 17), expressing his glee at the detention of the Greenpeace team who attempted a peaceful, non-violent protest at a Russian oil rig and were arrested at gunpoint, refused bail and imprisoned in harsh conditions, under threat of a sentence of up to 15 years.

These protesters believe that the international scramble to exploit the resources of the Arctic will result in degradation of the environment and threatens great danger to the oceans from oil spills. If this does happen, it will have an impact on us all.

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Whatever you think about their cause, the protesters were acting according to their principles and in a way which posed no harm to any person. The reaction of Russia was totally unexpected, completely out of proportion, and expresses Vladimir Putin’s determination to stop at nothing to achieve domination of the resources in this area (which is also claimed by several other countries).

Mr Watson’s spiteful wish that the Greenpeace activists should be locked away for life does him no credit.

Less rosy view of education

From: J Bainbridge, Heys Gardens, Thongbridge, Holmfirth.

IN reply to the letter from Roy Bedford (Yorkshire Post, October 18) concerning his education in the 1940s. I, too, was educated in the same period and sadly nowhere near as well as he was.

I went to a rural junior school and as there were few books, we had to share, so, unlike him, I could not read or write a good letter at the age of three.

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He was also fortunate to be taught long division and logarithms, a subject I was never taught. Also, the 11- plus was introduced and because of the war, as he states, school books were in short supply.

Consequently, I never had the opportunity to read any that were available. Needless to say I took the eleven-plus exam three times and in those days if you were unsuccessful and failed you were looked down on and treated by those who passed as inferior.

Fortunately my parents were able to send me to a private secretarial college where I obtained many qualifications 
and thereafter had a successful career.

Leering face of disgrace

From: Gurth Robinson, Threshfield, Skipton.

I APPRECIATE that you 
need to report on the “after Savile” sex crime situation, 
but to we really have to see 
his ugly, leering face almost 
every day?