ONLY last week we put our full support behind the decision by Bradford Council to seek to increase council tax by almost five per cent to bolster the ailing social care system.

Today, our exposure of the conditions in which dementia sufferer Tricia Crowther, 76, was allowed to live as she received social care at home, shows the stark reality of a system that has obviously reached crisis point, both here in Bradford and across the country.

The once house-proud widow was plainly no longer able to carry out even the most rudimentary household task and the result was that her home, in Shipley, became what her whistleblowing sister Beryl Barker described as a “filthy hovel.”

But, for reasons that are still unexplained, her care workers seem unable to have taken appropriate action even though their own records detailed the immense difficulties she had in looking after herself.

Mercifully, perhaps, in those circumstances, Mrs Crowther suffered a fall at home which required hospital treatment and she now resides in a specialist unit.

But it is nothing short of appalling that her living conditions had deteriorated to this extent while under social care.

In this column last week we cautioned that the council tax rise would only provide a stopgap answer to the huge funding shortfalls that exist in Bradford and elsewhere.

Shocking though it is, the case of Tricia Crowther is also unlikely to be unique.

Action at Government level is desperately needed to ensure that proper means are put in place to provide the elderly and vulnerable with the care they both need and deserve.