Feature

...and so does community care...

57 per cent of carers are in financial hardship, and only 20 per cent receive the invalidity care allowance of £35 per week.

The BMA estimates that unpaid carers provide the equivalent of £39m of care services per year.

The average cost of a place in a private nursing home is £333 per week, and for residential care is £239 per week.

Less than a quarter of all care staff in residntial homes are qualified.

Local authority residential places for the elderly fell from 84,000 in 1993 to 56,000 in 1994.

Forty-five per cent of GPs believe that services have deteriorated since the implementation of the Community Care Act.

Thirty per cent of carers have no access to respite care.

There are fewer home helps, district nurses and health visitors now than there were in 1990.

Local authority charges for services vary widely. Meal-on-wheels cost 35pence per meal in Derbyshire but £2 in Surrey.

Eighty per cent of people with schizophrenia in the community are not on the caseload of a community psychiatric nurse.

In 1994, 40,000 pensioners sold their homes to pay for care.

1,000 extra secure beds are urgently required to meet the needs of people with serious mental health problems.