Letter: When no one profits from private care

Sir: I was disturbed by your reports (17 September) about to the ill-treatment of people with learning disabilities in a Buckinghamshire residential home. I was, however, even more dismayed that hope was given only in the form of various litigation options.

Surely this is not the most intelligent response in the 1990s. We should be discussing the lack of training which personnel receive to work in such demanding 'care' situations in the private sector. It achieves nothing to look for scapegoats when an unsound system goes wrong.

The National Health Service has attempted to address the problem of how to house people with long-term difficulties and to provide standards of care which were carefully regulated. Over 46 years, health service personnel have acquired knowledge and experience to cope with people with challenging behaviours. While I do not want to perpetuate the system of detaining people with mental health problems or mental handicaps in long-stay institutions, I am concerned that expertise is not being transferred to community settings as hospitals are closed.

If pounds 400 a week does not buy properly qualified staff, who are supported and monitored, to look after Down's syndrome relatives, then community care is failing. If we all share the responsibility for these members of our society who have handicaps, which prevent them from living independently, then good quality care should be provided by the state and not by profit-seeking individuals.

Yours faithfully,

JO HOBMAN

St Donats, South Glamorgan

The writer is an occupational therapy educator.