Sorry Richie. It's spelt Wirral and it's obvious you don't even know the difference between respite care homes and residential homes for the elderly.

Tell you what, when you've dealt with a mother whose personality changed almost overnight, from being a warm and generous human being to becoming mean, argumentative and paranoid, you might have room to talk. When she's followed you round all day complaining that she's lost something she's actually got in her hand; when she cuts her dresses to shreds in the belief that she's altering them; when she wakes you up at three o'clock in the morning to tell you she's off to bed; when you can't get her over the door to go to day care because she's convinced she's got no kleenex in her handbag, after you've shown her the handbag is bursting with kleenex; when you've routinely washed her shit off the bathroom carpet; and when you've lived with the nightmare 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, month in and month out, then you might have room to talk.

Noreen. You are dead right. It is a dire situation, and one for which the ruling group on Wirral council have absolutely no comprehension, or compassion. The situation I've described didn't just apply to me. There are thousands of carers all over the country who are in the same boat. That is why it is essential that we get the closures stopped.

Oh and by the way, the nightmare didn't end when my mother went into a nursing home full time. I was lucky enough to get her into the best home on the Wirral. Shortly afterwards it was sold and the guests, including my mother, who was by this time too sick to be moved, suffered a dramatic decline in the standard of care. In the end things got so bad that CSCI had to place an embargo on any further admissions and almost ordered the place to close down.

Sorry Richie. Profit, privatisation and spending cuts are totally incompatible with the needs of the elderly and the vulnerable.