Warnings have been rife over the summer about the extent of the social care crisis, with hundreds of thousands of frail elderly people being denied the dignified support they need to remain in their own homes.

Lack of social care has a huge impact on the NHS, through so-called ‘bed-blocking’ where elderly patients cannot be discharged because it is unsafe for them to return home.

The causes of this worsening crisis are clear: £4.6 billion cuts in adult social care since 2010, privatisation of the majority of social care provision and a failure of society to invest to meet the demographic challenges of an ageing population.

None of the main political parties have a solution to this crisis and so Silver Voices (www.silvervoices.co.uk), a new national membership organisation for the over sixties, has been set up to campaign on social care and other senior citizen issues. Senior citizens are encouraged to join up on our website and help our campaigns.

The South Lakes are not immune from this crisis. In response to a Freedom of Information request from Silver Voices, we learned that on a random date in the summer, 21 per cent of the beds at Westmorland General Hospital at Kendal, operated by the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, were ‘blocked’ by patients waiting for a social care package to enable them to return home, and a further 10 per cent were blocked by patients waiting for a place in a residential or nursing home. The average wait of such patients is approximately three weeks.

Readers are urged to contact Silver Voices with any local examples of senior citizens being denied the social care support they need.

Dennis Reed

Kendal