I should like to respond to your correspondent Helen Marshall (Evening Advertiser, November 26) on the topic of nursing home care assistants.

My father-in-law has been in a local nursing home for nearly six years. The quality of general care he has received from the care assistants is beyond reproach.

The dedicated work of these staff members is not only essential, difficult, and often unpleasant, but carried out 24 hours a day.

The solution to the problem Helen Marshall experiences may well be to offer potential care staff a reasonable rate of pay.

Many nursing homes within the private sector pay their assistants a derisory hourly rate.

The homes customarily blame their alleged impecunious state on parsimonious local authorities.

But would these destitute homes care to declare the directors fees shown in their most recent annual accounts?

The real gripe of the private care sector is that they could make more profit elsewhere.

This may well be true, but this woeful bleat highlights the core problem.

By taking nursing and residential care out of direct public sector control it created a business opportunity for speculators who convert their care homes into flats or massage parlours as the market dictates hence the current national crisis.

Perhaps it is time for a change of policy?

Larry Wright

Kent Road

Swindon