YP Letters: Care crisis exposes Theresa May's empty words

WHEN Theresa May took up the post of Prime Minister, she promised to fight injustice and create a Britain that works for everyone. At the Conservative Party Conference she promised to not shirk the big decisions.

Well, just months into her time as Prime Minister, it would appear the Government is failing our oldest and most vulnerable people on all of those pledges.

A lack of investment in social care has meant the sector is now in crisis. Age UK fears social care could begin to collapse this year and says 1.2m people over 65 – about one in eight – now live with an unmet care need, 48 per cent more than in 2010. Some £160m has been cut from older people’s social care since that year.

As a care provider, I am dismayed to see care homes, in my local area and all over the country, closing and homecare providers handing back contracts that they cannot deliver. It is getting harder and harder to recruit nursing and care staff or to pay them what they deserve for the job they do.

Ahead of the Budget, I invite the Prime Minister to come and see life on the front line and see what it means to try to deliver care to older, frail and vulnerable people in 2017. Then see if she feels the Government is fighting injustice, creating a Britain that works for everyone and facing up to the big decisions.

From: Coun Peter Gruen (Lab), Leeds City Council.

CAN I congratulate your journalists for their thorough, well-researched and broadly based reporting of the current state of our NHS here in Leeds and, of course, nationally?

At a time when uncomfortable reporting is dismissed as ‘fake news’, your investigation took in all aspects. The news does not get better, does it? Today my Health Board heard about the chronic shortage of well-qualified and experienced nurses in both hospitals and community.

Mindful of the fantastic efforts of all staff in A&E, well above any expectations we have a right to have, we sent our heartfelt thanks to them all and I hope your readers will endorse this.

From: David Craggs, Shafton Gate, Goldthorpe.

AS I approach my 80th year, I find myself watching, listening to and reading about dementia. As I do so, I am becoming more and more convinced that it will not be cured by some sort of ‘silver bullet’, but will be prevented, or at least delayed from attacking us by some sort of lifestyle strategy.

It has surprised me that the Government has never carried out an extensive survey to look for possible links between lifestyle, and the onset of dementia, by inviting those, say 60 and over, to fill in a questionnaire about their diet, drinking habits, sleep patterns, physical and mental exercise, family history and so on.

From: Ron Firth, Campsall.

THE numbers attending A&E could be greatly reduced by local GPs providing an overnight service, as they did for many years.

It is surely wrong to judge hospital visits on the length of waiting times before being seen by medical staff. Until a patient is in the room, there is no telling how long the examination or treatment will take and the last thing patients need is for that consultation to be cut short so that the time target can be met.

Finally the numbers and cost of administration staff need severely pruning with the proceeds used to recruit and train more medical staff. Is it vital for nurses to

obtain a degree? Surely the best source of knowledge comes from working on the wards? Nursing is a practical task, not a theoretical one.

From: Delia Coburn, Ackworth.

NO more lottery rollovers. Pay it straight into the NHS.

Trump and the trolls

From: Chris Schorah, Gascoigne Avenue, Leeds.

SO the Bradford MP Naz Shah thinks we should not invite President Trump to the UK because of his anti-Muslim views (The Yorkshire Post, February 22).

The problem with this principled stand is that if you want to be even-handed with this, as I hope Ms Shah does, then you’d have to refuse entry to any head of state whose country persecutes people because of their faith.

At the last count this would include nearly 50 countries, many of them Muslim-majority nations, where the level of persecution is far greater than that proposed by the Trump administration.

From: Keith Jowett, Woodland Rise, Silkstone Common, Barnsley.

PRESIDENT Trump’s actions are being described as narcissistic, dysfunctional and even terrifying. Can we be content that such a person is charged with control of the nuclear button? For the sake of the sanity and hope of all of us, I can only hope that there are, on both sides of the Atlantic, men and women capable, brave and able enough to protect us from this maverick.

From: D Wood, Howden.

IT is now becoming rather boring that every piece of bad news on the front page of The Yorkshire Post is ascribed to the Brexit vote.

The mere fact that the PC police forces have actually been encouraging people to report alleged hate crimes will automatically cause an increase.

To brand people like Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and Nigel Farage, the leaders of the Leave campaign, as racist for speaking out about the damage caused by mass immigration is diabolical.

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I’M not keen on Diane Abbott but the abuse she has suffered from so-called trolls is too shocking to be printed here. Nor am I a fan of Frank Skinner, who is nothing if not worldly. Yet the comedian is on record as saying that he never knew how horrible people were pre-social media.