THE CLAIM tonight that elderly people in Lancashire have been forced to wait for places in private residential homes because of a Social Services cash squeeze, despite the county council having funds to spare, may worry many old people who need financial support in order to receive this kind of care.

But it is both the emphatic denial by Social Services that anyone has been made to wait because of funding problems and the source of the complaint - from the organisation representing owners of private residential and nursing homes in Lancashire - that suggests to us that this issue needs to be treated with scepticism. The home owners' body is, after all, an interest group concerned with the livelihoods of its members and the profitability of their businesses.

That may not diminish the claim about enforced waits for admission and that homes are closing because, although they have the money, social services are operating cutbacks, but it does qualify it.

Thus, in the light of the firm rejection of these allegations by the county's Social Services chief, who says she is not aware of one instance of a person being forced to wait for a place in a home because of funding problems, it is up to the owners' association to provide specific instances - or risk being accused of being alarmist in their own interest.

It is in their court, then, that the ball now lies.

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