OUR overstretched, limited ambulance and care services are under increasing pressure from many older people who have been medically cleared and want to be at home.

They are in hospital beds for much longer because, only those in private care schemes can cover the cost of getting them home with the necessary daily care they need.

While others, without this private funding, suffer long delays in beds which should be there for people with increasingly serious, long-term health problems waiting much longer for necessary treatment.

Our full working lives and contributions have been well worthwhile. Now what we built is being dismantled.

George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.