THE cost of caring for an elderly person in a residential care setting has not risen substantially for several years.

The severe application of criteria for admittance to residential care has begun to work in such a way that the need for residential home placements is becoming increasingly unnecessary, as people are now only being allowed a placement when their needs can be met starting at the low end of nursing care.

There appears to be a failure to recognise that ordinary residential care home staff are not qualified in nursing care. Social services are committed to working within their budgets as ordained by the Government, so the large majority of elderly people who may once have been considered suitable candidates for 24-hour residential care no longer qualify, but do qualify for home care services, which are cheaper.

This may seem to some as a good thing, providing clients with their stated preference in being able to remain in their own home – some choice, no matter how inappropriate this may be. However it may seem to another that this is merely a cheap alternative to providing appropriate quality of care, and is jeopardising the extension of the person's life.

Candidates for residential care are being offered to care homes at unrealistic rates of remuneration. This is caused by social services panels deciding at what band they will place a person based on sometimes incompetent or unrealistic assessments of the individual's care needs.

This is a wake-up call. Yes, of course people will always say they prefer to continue to live in their own homes, but those who would once have benefited from and qualified for 24-hour care are now having to do with 15-20 minutes of care twice a day and Meals on Wheels.

As a nation we shall pay for our bankers' ineptitude with the lives of the old and frail.

Anthony Edmund Forte

Teignmouth

Stop the Lycra louts

CYCLISTS on pavements in Devon and Cornwall are a daily menace to pedestrians. I have witnessed appalling anti-social behaviour by them.

I was almost knocked over in Plymouth earlier this year by a Marine in uniform cycling flat out on Armada Way. I moved to my right to pass the pedestrian in front of me and the cyclist, coming very fast from behind, had to swerve to avoid me, passing with a few inches to spare.

Recently in Saltash I saw two schoolgirls having to move quickly out of the way of a cyclist tearing downhill on the pavement where they were walking. A few days later I saw a middle- aged Lycra lout ride at high speed on a pavement round a sharp bend. Any pedestrian on the other side of the bend would have been in great danger. I could give other examples.

I regret to say – and I am not usually a critic of our police – that I have witnessed dangerous cycle riding on pavements with PCSOs or police officers in a position to intervene but taking no action to protect the public.

I urge Cornwall Council and Plymouth City Council to get involved in dealing with this dangerous and illegal behaviour.

Neil S Hailstone

Saltash

Scots' seal slaughter

THE barbaric practice of slaughtering seals to produce salmon for our over-fed stomachs causes revulsion and horror to most civilised people.

Below is a letter sent to Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond – perhaps concerned people would like add their protests by copying and sending it to him, and by boycotting Scottish salmon in our supermarkets.

"Dear First Minister,

I have just learned that the shooting and killing of seals is not only allowed in Scotland, your Government has been blocking moves to gives seals some legal protection.

Until Scotland bans the killing of seals I will not be visiting your country as a tourist, will most definitely not be buying Scottish salmon, and will also avoid other Scottish products.

Please tell me why your new Marine Act will allow fish farmers and others to shoot pregnant seals and mother seals with dependent pups?

Tell me why your new law will not force fish farmers to use existing technology to protect their stock without resorting to shooting seals?

Bring Scotland into the 21st century – outlaw the killing of seals and give seals and their marine environment proper legal protection."

Eileen Noakes

Totnes

Benefits crackdown

THE Government has at last begun to crack down harder on benefit cheats, according to a TV ad, and makes three very good points.

1. You have a much better chance of being caught.

2. If convicted you will have a criminal record number.

3. Most important, you will have to pay back every penny you have fiddled from the taxpayer.

I hope the last point includes MPs.

C E Rome

Exeter

Goose and gander

BANKERS are to be subject to new windfall taxes on bonuses, so it is logical to apply the same parameters to MPs' "parachute" payments, for those who choose to resign rather than face the electorate next year.

Why should taxpayers pay £70,000 to those who milked the expenses system? Bankers or MPs – what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

M H Wadmore

Delabole