From meals on wheels to home helps, to care homes, the social care system provides vital everyday support for literally millions of people across England. The City of Wolverhampton is no exception to the rule.

Yet chronic under-funding and unnecessary red tape has left the system in crisis. Here in Wolverhampton, the controlling group of the City Council is proposing horrendous cuts in the social care budget both financial cuts and shedding staff.

In domiciliary care, two levels of need have been taken from the criteria used by the local authority to assess the needs of people. This means that those no longer considered in need by this brutal action, are left to find alternative ways of providing the care they need to live their lives with dignity and independence.

Rising fuel and food costs have hit older people the hardest. About three million older people live in fuel poverty. The Bank of England, by reducing the bank rate to record nil per cent, is causing many pensioners to be seriously concerned about the state of their savings.

For 25,000 older people in England each year, the decision to either eat food or heat their home is often fatal.

Years of neglect have left England’s social care system on the brink of collapse. A shocking eight out of 10 of those in need of home care do not receive it from the state. We are told the increase in help for residential care homes will be in the region of a half of one per cent. Life in nursing homes is symptomatic of how society treats older people.

Do not let us write anyone off, because they are old. There are, among the elderly, those who are caring for family members and friends without pay, support or recognition.

Wolverhampton has long been seen as a leading authority in the way in which it has provided facilities for the elderly. But would this apply at this moment in time?

Our Government is now talking about reform. What a historic opportunity to shape a social care system that will really improve people’s lives. Let it be a system that condemns the current phrase “Eat or Heat” to the past, never to rear its ugly head again.

With the number of older people set to double in the next 20 years, the crisis in social care will soon touch us all. We need to put social care at the top of our priority list – alongside hospitals and schools – before it is too late.

R C Girdler, Cherrywood Green, Stowlawn, Bilston.