I WOULD like to thank the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for the excellent coverage given to the very serious problem of nursing home closures.

I would hate to think this could happen to anyone else's loved ones, but it's happened before and it will happen again unless the law is changed.

I am taking this matter as far as I can and if anyone else has concerns regarding this they should contact Jack Straw's personal assistant on 01254 52317 or write to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. The law must be changed.

There needs to be an inquiry as to how homes can close at such short notice, disrupting vulnerable old people who have worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes and fought wars to make this country a better place.

Dogs are given seven days in kennels to be found new homes. Surely, we should be given a minimum of a month to find our loved ones new accommodation. Staff at the Hawkhurst Care Centre in Blackburn who took my mother and three other former residents of St Emmanuel's Residential Home coped admirably with them though they all had very different special needs.

But it would have taken a magician to know all their needs and little quirks straight away.

The new residents saw faces they didn't know, voices they didn't recognise, and rooms that were alien from the ones they knew so well.

The staff at Hawkhurst were so very caring and compassionate to both myself and my Mum in her final days.

The other three residents seem to be happily settled, and I sincerely hope that the other uprooted residents who went to other homes have done the same.

I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has become involved in this issue and has given me and my family much-needed support in these last three weeks.

SUE EVANS, French Road, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.