ACCORDING to County Councillors Chris Cheetham and Hazel Harding care-in-the-home is more desirable for the elderly and is what most people want.

Of course, most elderly people want to stay at home, but there comes a time when, for health or safety and comfort, some need to go into a caring home.

My own mother is receiving care at home and most of the time is all right until:

1. The carer who gets her up and dressed doesn't arrive, so she gets upset and panics. She has difficulty walking and is partially sighted but has to struggle to her stairlift to come down to the phone to ring the office or me.

2. The carers the elderly know are on holiday or off sick and are replaced by strangers. To the elderly, this is also upsetting.

3. After breakfast, the elderly spend long days alone, with the doors locked for safety if they are not lucky enough to have relatives living nearby.

4. Bedtime: Again staff may be late or not arrive, so my mother again gets upset and is a prisoner in her own home.

How can extending the system work when carers are overstretched already?

Name and address received.