WHILE I agree with D Lister that funds must be found for residential and nursing home beds (EA Nov 21), it is wrong to lay all the blame at the door of central government.
For the past 12 years the White Horse Care Trust has provided high quality care and accommodation for almost 70 clients with moderate to severe learning difficulties.
Prior to April 1999, our costs were met by direct payment from the Health Authority and, although the budget was tight, there was always enough money to cover costs and plough a little back into improvements.
We are now in our third year of new arrangements under which our services are purchased by local authority social services departments.
The money formerly paid to care providers by the Health Authority is now passed over to the local councils so that they can discharge their new responsibility at no additional cost to the council tax payers.
Perhaps therefore, as a Swindon Borough councillor, Dr Lister can explain why his council slices a percentage off these health authority funds before passing them on to the care providers?
It is only since our funding started to be squeezed in this way that my trust has run into financial difficulties.
DON REEVE
Director of finance
The White Horse Care Trust
Okus Road
Swindon
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