A 94-YEAR-OLD woman who has lived her whole life in Bere Alston may have to move out of the only care home in the village because her family cannot afford to pay the costs.

The plight of Mrs May Colley has raised serious concerns about the underfunding of elderly care as her retired daughter and son-in-law struggle to find the top-up fees out of their pension to give their mother a home.

Mrs Colley has no means of her own and although suffering from depression and anxiety, she does not qualify as highly dependent and so does not get the full amount of social services funding available.

Despite an extra £25 a week provided by her family, there is a shortfall of approximately £80 a week required by the residential home in Bere Alston.

The alternative is to move Mrs Colley into the only local authority care home in the area, Harewood House in Tavistock.

Mrs Colley's daughter, Heather Simpson, said at 94 it was only right her mother should stay in the village: 'Bere Alston is her home, where she was born and lived her whole life. She knows other residents at West View and her family all live around here so if anything happened we could be there in five minutes.'

'She has been very worried sick, thinking she will have to go to Tavistock.

'The Government needs to look after older people. I suppose some people have money but there are a lot of people who don't and they are expected to pay towards the cost.

'It seems so unfair when footballers get paid millions but elderly people are forgotten about.'

Mrs Simpson, 62, said it was a difficult situation having to put her mother into care but she could not be there for her 24 hours a day.

Prior to moving into West View Mrs Colley lived in a council house in the village. Her husband died at 41 and she raised a child on her own and worked until the age of 70, harvesting potatoes, fruit and flowers.

Director of Peninsula Care Ltd, which runs Bere Alston's West View Residential Home, Trevor Atkinson, has written to West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox expressing his concerns.

He said Mrs Colley did not qualify for high dependancy funding based on her physical and mental state but he felt the emotional needs of the elderly should be taken into account.

'At 94 years of age the physical criteria are not necessarily the most important reasons for choosing residential care. Loneliness, isolation, fears of being alone, of their security are all equally relevant in my opinion.

'Surely at 94 we should be prepared as a nation to honour their right to choose the type of care they feel they require.'

He added that the costs of running a residential care home were high with 58% of the income spent on staff wages alone. Next year £360,000 was being invested in improvements at West View, said Mr Atkinson.

He said that accepting the funding as it stood was adding risk to the vitality of the business. Even with the top-up fee from the family, there was still a shortfall of £4,000 a year, he said.

In his reply to Mr Atkinson, Mr Cox, who raised the issue in parliament last year, said it was clear the present system was failing everyone. The Government would soon be issuing a commission on long-term care which would consider a range of ideas, including both a voluntary insurance scheme to protect the assets of those who went into residential care and a partnership scheme.

A spokesman for Devon County Council said: 'Where a family chooses to make their arrangements privately with a care home of their choice, without firstly establishing the level of their entitlement for assistance from the council, we cannot guarantee to be able to assist. 

'We are unable to discuss individual cases, but we are working closely with the family concerned in this case to reach a mutual agreement about how we can assist them to remain in a home of their choice.'