Reader letter: Urgent action needed over new care homes

Surely the best way to ease pressure on hospitals is to get new care homes opened very quickly.

I don't mean within the span of this Government. They should open within the next two years. Call me the King of Wishful Thinking if you like but surely existing properties can be converted or newbuilds created without too much delay.

Even the most self-protective NIMBY can hardly object to a care home being opened near them. NHS trusts should be asked urgently (in months not years) how many care home spaces would be needed, and say, 10 per cent added for extra demand.

If necessary plans should be speeded through, taking care to meet safety requirements. The public should pay for them in a special tax, the money being tightly ring-fenced so that it cannot be spent elsewhere. And executives who fail to get the job done should be chased and asked why. The care homes must be delivered.

To attract staff, care workers should be paid as essential and socially-important workers, not cheap labour. I would suggest 50 per cent above the minimum wage for a start. (shock horror!)

This must not be a political matter ( I have voted Tory, Labour and LibDem in my 74 years). It is a purely human one.

I recall many years ago your excellent now-retired health writer Dianne Jones reporting Governments boasting of a seamless NHS-social care service. I reported the same empty promises about 25 years ago for the old Evening Argus. It has never happened.

My message for those who don't want to pay extra taxes is simple. You are likely to need a care home or a hospital bed, and perhaps sooner than you think.

Let's show we can get on and do something in this country instead of endless political waffle.

Phil Dennett

Burgess Hill