CARERS in West Berkshire are being left unsupported when they get older a health care championing group has claimed.

A new report by Healthwatch West Berkshire revealed there is no plan for when carers can no longer support their dependants.

In 2002 Mencap produced a major report detailing fears dependants with learning difficulties were increasingly outliving their carers with no planned provision to help them.

Now a group of concerned parents say the problem still has not been addressed.

Carol winter, a parent said: "I worry that my daughter will be lost when I am not here to support her.

"It is not right that there is absolutely no plan in place to give me peace of mind for her future."

West Berkshire Council's adult social care team have agreed a raft of changes including setting up an action group of professionals, carers and voluntary sector workers to solve the issue.

Andrew Sharp, chief officer of Healthwatch West Berkshire said: “This national disgrace has a local dimension here in West Berkshire, where parents and carers have battled for years to find out how their loved ones would be looked after in future when they could no longer care, or were no longer here to care.

"Some 15 years after the Mencap report, it has all been to no avail.

"While transitional arrangements have been in place for many years for those with learning disabilities moving from children to adult services with a degree of planning, and similarly with the attainment of independence as adults, when the final transition is needed it seems no transitional plans are in place.

"It seems only at crisis point are any plans made, even though the council have known for decades that care services would be needed when the carer can no longer care or is no longer here.

"I suppose what we need is the carers and the housing team to sit down.

"The action group is about getting the right people sitting round the same table.

"The first thing we want to see if any one across the country has a solution if not we can try and find something a bit more innovative."

Campaigners gathered on Newtown Road, near the Phoenix Centre, a site originally earmarked for sheltered housing, on Friday, March 21.