Rory Kinnear’s moving tribute to his sister (My sister died of coronavirus. She needed care, but her life was not disposable, 12 May) must be a wake-up call about how we choose to ignore vulnerable people. His phrase about coronavirus, “it is making the lives of those most in need of our care and compassion even harder”, eloquently describes the situation of many people.
Many years ago people were incarcerated in long-stay hospitals, but care in the community was supposed to end this. However, due to austerity, privatisation, deregulation, and lack of transparency and accountability, many people are now “incarcerated in the community”.
We appear to be shocked that there are 400,000 people in nursing care, but there are many more vulnerable people living independently with different levels of support – and sometimes with no support at all.
Karina Kinnear was fortunate to have a loving family who were able to support her; many people don’t have this. It would be a fitting tribute to engage people and communities now in a proper redesign of the new future. There are numerous experts who can contribute – and by experts, I mean vulnerable people themselves.
Sally Young
Newcastle upon Tyne
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