Madam,

I am heartily sickened that the UK government’s austerity agenda, targeting those least able to defend themselves, appears to have led Cyngor Sir Ceredigion to de-humanise some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society (‘Home care cuts on cards’, last week’s Cambrian News).

People who find the greatest challenge in maintaining dignity and achieving hopes and aspirations are set to be considered as no more than units of cost. I think that it is pretty cynical if report authors Price Waterhouse Cooper are working on commission and it is pretty self-evident that whilst they and the council can calculate to the last penny the cost of providing care, they have no real grasp of the value.

Since when did essential interventions to support care and wellbeing become the rather jolly and generous sounding “visitor hours”? Calls by two carers were instituted to promote a safe working environment for workers and service users. Are these now to be abandoned in favour of unsafe practice to save money? Perhaps the expectation is that family will pick up the slack, as health and safety legislation won’t apply to them. Likewise, any days lost from day centre attendance mean alternative care has to be found; does the council expect families to give up a day’s wages? Families are more fragmented than ever and even those living locally are al-most always obliged to work due to a low wage economy. Balancing these pressures with caring for a relative is often unendurable, yet the council is seeking to increase the guilt factor yet further. This policy is also discriminatory as it is usually female relatives who bear the greatest burden of care responsibilities. Anyway, what if the person needing care doesn’t wish to have their personal care attended to by a relative, let alone a friend or volunteer?It is all well and good speaking of additional occupational therapist assessments and what amounts to compelling people to go into residential care, but where are the extra equipment and care places to come from? Or are we content to see families dispersed still further apart, the threat of which perhaps acting as a subtle inducement to encourage them to pitch in that extra bit more?Lastly, please consider the people working in the field to assess and provide care; every instinct and every scrap of training they have received is geared towards promoting choice and fitting services to needs and not vice-versa. The pressure they find themselves under must be intolerable.

It is said that we deserve the government we get. Well, if these measures are adopted, shame on us and shame on Cyngor Sir Ceredigion.

Yours etc

George Holloway

Rhoshendre, Waunfawr,Aberystwyth.