• A MAJOR impetus for rises in council tax is reduction in the taxpayers’ money that central government dispenses to local authorities.

The story is also put about that NHS accident and emergency services are over-stretched as a result of the “growing burden” of older people in the community, while too little attention is attached to savage austerity-based cuts to adult social care support.

When I was a part-time domiciliary social care worker in 2005 and 2006, on £7.81 per hour, care sessions I was deployed on were three hours long and I was not paid for the time taken to prepare for the session (including perusing essential information about the service user) or the travel time between care sessions.

Nowadays many care sessions are just 15 minutes long!

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ president (Letters, February 23) writes: “A gap in the social care bill could be plugged if disabled people with injuries caused by negligent motorists or employers, for example, were to receive the correct level of compensation to meet their needs.”

How big a portion of the gap in the social care bill might that be, I wonder? Nothing like 25 per cent, surely?

Why do I cite a 25 per cent figure? In February 2015 the Telegraph reported that the health secretary had set aside a quarter of the NHS budget for medical negligence claims. No wonder that ambulance-chasing law firms advertise their presence on daytime TV!

Imagine what could be done to reduce the amount of system meltdown medical negligence if the NHS services, freed from cuts in public spending, were adequately funded and staff – including disabled staff – were adequately trained and supported!

In reality I resigned from my 2005/6 cover duties as a social care worker to adults with learning difficulties to protect both myself and my service users.

My immune system was severely impaired as a result of stress and I realised that the quality of my service delivery could be so impaired that I might be disciplined for professional negligence.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW5