I WAS horrified to read about the elderly woman stuck in hospital because of the lack of a care package (Gazette, April 20, 'Let my mum return home').

This is so wrong - for her, for her family and for the NHS struggling to look after everyone, including people who should not be in their wards and don’t need to be.

It surely is time for social care to be properly funded by this government.

We have a local MP who has fought very hard to maintain and improve our NHS services but the problems caused by underfunding of social care are an enormous threat to the NHS. And they are not going to improve without resources and careful planning at a national level.

If other readers of this newspaper were as upset as I was by the Gazette's article they could check out the Women’s Equality Party, who have improvements in social care as a core value, fully costed.

It is the aim of this relatively new party to influence the main parties into taking the issues that hold back women’s equality seriously.

Care is one of these issues - it tends to fall to women to pick up care needs but it affects all of us at some stage in our lives.

We all need to scrutinize all the parties’ manifestos and track records on this one and vote accordingly if we are going to get the care we need when we are old and vulnerable and not become an impossible burden to our children.

This election should not just be about Brexit.

Fiona Atkinson

Branch leader for the Kendal and Lakes Women’s Equality Party

Kendal