An external inquiry is underway after a housebound pensioner was left without food and drink for seven hours when a Bradford Council home care worker failed to show up.

Widower George Halmshaw, 72, who is paralysed down his right side and has lost his speech following a stroke, relies on visiting home care assistants for his weekdays breakfast and lunch.

His daughter Patricia Wallace looks after him at her bungalow in Oakleigh Avenue, Clayton, but has to go to work five days a week.

But she is furious that her father went hungry from 10am to 5pm when no-one turned up at lunchtime last Thursday.

And she says it is the fourth time this has happened in the past 16 months.

The Council today apologised unreservedly and promised to act on any recommendations to improve its home care service which might emerge from the investigation it has ordered.

"It's absolutely disgusting. I'm at work and I never know if they're going to come or not. I can't get hold of him by phone," said Mrs Wallace, 48.

"It makes us feel terrible while we are out at work. The last time it happened was three months ago and they said then it would never happen again but it has done."

On that occasion, Philip Lewer, the Council's assistant director of social services, went to Mr Halmshaw's home in person to apologise.

Mrs Wallace said she was told then that her father had simply been left off the rota by mistake.

Mr Halmshaw suffered a stroke in 1991. He is able to walk with a stick around the house, dress himself and get to the bathroom but cannot prepare meals or make a drink.

He has an emergency buzzer but Mrs Wallace said he would normally only use it if he had fallen.

She and her partner Mark Wrightson, 31, both work for the mail order company Grattan and are expected to put in extra hours because of the Christmas rush.

"It's very distressing. If it's happening to him you wonder how many other people it might be happening to," said Mrs Wallace.

Today, Mr Lewer said of the latest incident: "I would like to apologise unreservedly to Mr Halmshaw and his family for the failure to visit him and for any distress which this might have caused.

"We are concerned that this has happened before and have therefore ordered an external investigation into the matter.

"Once this has been completed, a report and any service recommendation will be referred to the services to the older people sub-committee."

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