Poorest hit hardest

Nov 28 2012 Birkenhead News

MR Frank Field’s comments on government cuts (Wed November 14) are very welcome but should have been angrier and splashed across the front of the News – not back on p32.

He said that our council has been dealt a dreadful hand (surely the understatement of the year) by the Tory/Lib Coalition which has cut Wirral’s budget by £80m. Mr Field and the rest of our local politicians should be denouncing the shocking news from the rooftops.

This Coalition has targeted the poorest and most needy areas in the country and we should all be vociferous in condemning not only the speed of the cuts, but also the savagery and the unfairness. These cuts will affect our workforce who are threatened with unemployment, and our young, our old and our disabled who face the real possibilities of losing vital services.

Our council is in a difficult position – and has asked us to help through consultation processes – but we should all be lobbying our local representatives to fight this discrimination against our area. The Coalition government is our enemy, not the council.

T WILLIAMS,

Prenton

Steamrollered

SO like Neston, even though the overall majority of people were against the Sainsbury’s supermarket being built, it went ahead.

So now the John Sainsbury bandwagon and its cronies are moving into Greasby. Neston’s high street is dead, and now I fear that the same thing will happen in Greasby.

Small shops are the heart of the community, but the big supermarkets are coming in, like a plague of locust, destroying everything that stands in their way. They show scant respect and loyalty to the small shopkeeper who is trying to make a living, even now, in these very difficult times.

The people who make these decisions don’t listen to the people, because they are ruthless and don’t care. Let us not kid ourselves that they create jobs, “what nonsense!” The closure of small shops, deserted high streets and, we must not forget the thousands of suppliers who have gone out of business, because of their excessive demands.

Frank Thomas

Neston

Be warned

LAST year we, along with many others, had our Christmas garden ornaments stolen. Our cost was £150, others lost much more.

My daughter, like us, lives on a school route and many children have stopped for the past 10 years to look at the display. My grandchildren have loved the garden displays.

We now feel we are unable to decorate our own home and we wish to warn everyone to be aware that the thieves will try again as it is easy for them to simply unplug or cut through the wiring. The thieves operated night or day.

P DAVIES

Address supplied

Care concerns

I WAS concerned and intrigued to read and hear recent reports regarding the proposed changes to care home fees paid by Wirral Council.

Of special interest were the inane comments from Wirral Care Association who responded by comparing the rersidential care of the Wirral elderly to the cheapest no frills budget national hotel chains. That just about sums up and very much explains the questionable and variable standard of care throughout Wirral, if the service providers themselves (some of whom are from a hotel management background) see themselves as providers of no frills budget care home services, then very serious quality care problems are ahead and should come as no surprise.

The Care Quality Commission has recently published damning and alarming national statistics regarding the poor care standards coupled with inadequate staffing levels within care homes. From bitter personal experience I know this to be true and sadly is a deficiency increasingly obvious in some care homes within the Wirral area. These deficiencies are not down to the level of fees paid in Wirral but other major factors.

The vulnerable of Wirral really are in an increasingly vulnerable position because we firstly continue to have an inept and inadequate management running Wirral Adult Social Services as borne out by the current fee debacle, CQC inspection report 2010, the AKA scandal report and associated issues 2011/2012, the widely reported significant failings of five care homes within the Wirral area (2012) that worryingly brings into question the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the complaints and contract monitoring teams within Adult Social Services, why weren't these major failings identified before the Care Quality Commission identified then?

Eric Liversage

Bromborough