COUNCILLOR Susan Haworth is somewhat late in coming to the table with her views on the plight of care workers who attend to the elderly in their own homes.

Having said that, it is difficult to disagree with most of the points that she makes or indeed those made by Joan Pritchard-Jones.

What they both fail to address however, is the supremely important issue of the quality of care delivered to the end user by whatever means.

This hinges on the fact that such ‘care’ is financed in 15 minute ‘lumps.'

I highlighted the inadequacy of these 15 minute sessions in these columns in June 2013 and the point was subsequently reinforced by Andy Morgan in a Bolton News article on October 8 of that year.

I followed this up with a further letter in January which cautioned the Council about a pending crisis in homecare caused by the impact on local authorities of the Care Bill which recently passed through Parliament.

We now discover that the Council intends to move many of the in-house social care services into an ‘Arms Length’ company with a view to making over time some of the necessary savings required for 2015-2017.

How this will actually be achieved is unclear, but in any event I am not convinced that it will result in improvements in either the length of time spent with clients or the financial security of the care workers.

Perhaps Ms Haworth can convince her Leader to allow her to instigate a root and branch, transparent and public investigation of where we are going on this. I am sure she would get support for such an exercise from across the political spectrum.

Cllr Paul Richardson

Ripon Close

Little Lever