Nearly 400,000 elderly people could lose their home help after next year, local councils. They said assistance for frail and vulnerable older people will be withdrawn unless taxpayers pump extra billions into council coffers.

{mosimage}Leaders called on Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling to pay money into their social services rather than into the NHS and hospitals in the major Whitehall spending review due next month.

The warning put hundreds of thousands of older people who depend on help paid for by social services at the centre of a spat between local government chiefs and Mr Brown.

Home help includes vital everyday assistance with dressing, washing, cooking, shopping and keeping house. Without it many elderly people would become isolated, ill, and unable to live by themselves – and many would be forced to abandon independent lives and go to live in care homes.

Sir Simon Milton, leader of the Local Government Association, set out the warning in a letter to council bosses.

He told them that unless town halls are given generous treatment in the Comprehensive Spending Review, “then there will be real difficulties.”

“In the next three years alone, there will be more than 400,000 more older people, many of whom will require social care.

Tim Thompson was horrified at the state of the care home where his 96-year-old grandmother lived.

{mosimage}It was not just the soiled carpets that worried him but his grandmother’s rapid deterioration in the Edendale Care Home, Wisbech, Cambs.

He was so desperate he even contemplated “rescuing” her from the home, only to be warned he did not have power of attorney over the dementia patient and would be reported to the police if he removed her.

Mr Thompson hoped reporting the home to the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) would see an independent investigation improve the care his grandmother and others would receive.

He expected unannounced spot checks – but, to his shock, his three-page letter was sent to the home’s temporary manager, who effectively investigated herself and said action had been taken.

“It was unbelievable,” Mr Thompson, told a BBC Radio 4’s File On 4 programme investigation.

The CSCI decided not to investigate.

Mike Rourke, its business director for inspection, regulation and review, told BBC Radio 4’s File On 4 programme: “We don’t believe we have the authority to investigate individual complaints.

More than half of all working mothers will lie about why they are running late or absent from the office if their childcare arrangements fall through, according to research.

More than half of all working mothers will lie about why they are running late or absent from the office if their childcare arrangements fall through, according to research.