LIKE everyone else, I read the recent headline "MPs back new deal for carers" - respite care, weekend breaks, holidays and regular days off. Great!

But as an ex-carer of seven years - my mother having just died - I feel the thing carers need most is money in their pockets.

The Invalid Care Allowance is less than £40 a week. To me, that is an insult.

For the last year of her life my mother was in a nursing home where the fees were more than £300 a week. Up to her going into care, I did everything that was necessary: feeding, washing, toileting, etc. Yes, carers do need a break and I used to get a break by paying for it.

Carers aren't greedy people and we are for ever being told what a wonderful job we are doing, saving the country millions. Well some of those "millions" will have to be paid to people undertaking the respite care.

So how about a bit of it going to carers themselves, to make their lives easier whilst they are doing the caring.

ELIZABETH WILSON,

Chesham Road, Bury.

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