My experience of care of the elderly, predominantly in cardiac and cancer services, at the Royal Sussex County Hospital (RSCH) has been good.

However, when my late husband needed long-term care for Parkinson's Disease-related dementia and diabetes, I experienced, at first hand, the outrageous lack of resources, poor facilities and indifferent nursing at Brighton General Hospital.

I spent ages trying to persuade the NHS and Social Services to provide "hospital at home" carers. But I was obliged to employ them myself, which took up most of my income.

Had it not been for the creative thinking of the Towner Club (for early onset dementia patients) and the Brighton Alzheimer's Society, I don't know how my husband and I would have managed.

After a visit to a Brighton General ward, with a colleague who works in medicine, we were so horrified, we wrote to those responsible. There were some improvements but, since my husband died in 1998, I don't think much has changed.

Services for elderly people consist of staff who are badly paid, overworked and demoralised. There's a culture of hopelessness and, at worst, abuse.

A care assistant, working with severely demented patients, gets about the minimum wage but no specialist training or psychological support. You can earn more stacking supermarket shelves.

Why, if Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, do we put up with such conditions? Why do services for the elderly and mentally ill remain so bad?

Have cost-cutting and "efficiency gains" become a national obsession, a means of controlling us as we fight each other for resources, alongside the awarding of "stars"? Do we really need such pathetic symbols to do our work?

In the Eighties, I worked in Bulgaria. I spent time in many hospitals, including psychiatric ones, but, contrary to the propaganda at the time, I never saw anything as bad as I've seen here.

-Professor Diane Waller, Brighton