ISN'T it time to do away with the blathering over Lancashire County Council's proposed closure of umpteen of its old folk's homes -- 19 in East Lancashire alone.

And for us to be given a frank admission from it and the government that this is much more to do with saving money than it is with ensuring elderly residents are properly looked after?

After all, don't the sums say it all -- when shutting 35 of its 45 homes will save the County £14.5 million, precisely the amount it would cost to bring them up to new government standards if they were all kept open?

But why the need for new standards in old folk's homes -- and for far fewer of them to be available in future when more and more elderly people are living longer and requiring care? It's not as if the existing homes are uninspected, unregulated hell holes, is it?

No, but keeping an elderly person in a local authority-run home is a dear do, costing £310 a week against the £235 charged by private-sector homes.

Moving the goalposts to create a new generation of 'super' old folk's homes might sound grand, but not if it means there are far fewer residential-care places at the end of the day.

So we see a policy emerging of booting hundreds of old biddies and codgers out of county-run homes into the private ones in the meantime and, in future, of keeping more of them in their own homes, with carers calling in now and then to see to them. And, after all, can't the caring county council fairly claim that this is what the oldies want?

Says Social Services supremo County Councillor Chris Cheetham: "The message we have been getting for some time is that people prefer to stay in their own homes and welcome the support that enables them to do that."

Well, of course, they do -- as long as they have the physical and mental capacity to remain independent with a bit of back-up help. The new outlook, however, seems to be to deny necessary residential care to hundreds of confused, immobile and incapable old folk who may very well need it. Is the county council saying that all those currently in old folk's homes don't really need to be there? If so, what are they doing there -- if that's what they are assessed as needing at present?

Furthermore, how can they be so sure that thousands of others will no longer need this level of care in future?

All they can be sure of is that denying it to them will be a darned sight cheaper.

Caring? Bull!

They're out to uproot scores of old folk already assessed as needing residential care, shove them into cheaper accommodation, separate them from their friends and the carers they are used to and upset them and possibly finish off some of them in the process -- all for the sake of dressed-up 'better' standards that are out to save money and which will condemn the next generation of elderly to virtual imprisonment in their own homes waiting for at best a couple of hours of domiciliary care a day, when once they had people to keep an eye on them round the clock in surroundings they could call home.

What a scandal!