READERS with relatives in a care home will be interested to learn that Iain Duncan Smith and other Conservative MPs are trying to annul the new National Care Standards Commission regulations. These aim to improve the minimum standards older people can expect in care homes.
This may presage some sort of climb-down by the Secretary of State in the face of continual lobbying by some sections of the care home industry. It is essential that this does not happen. It would throw the efforts of the newly-forming NCSC into disarray and make a mockery of the new inspection process.
It would also create an unlevel playing field - this time between those good homes which are making strides in improving their services and facilities and those poor homes which have no intention of improving. It would mean older people will have been betrayed.
Write to your MP or other opinion- formers and express your views.
Derek Shaw,
Secretary, York Older People's Forum, Room 5, Central Methodist Church,
St Saviourgate, York.
Updated: 10:43 Wednesday, January 23, 2002
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