IMAGINE if every time you had a bath, it cost you £11. This is the position many disabled people in the UK today find themselves in.

Many disabled people need a range of personal care services - which can include bathing or assistance with getting out of bed in the morning - so they can live everyday lives.

New government guidance will mean that this system of charging will continue - and charges could even increase.

Many other public services - for instance, having the police visit your house after a burglary or sending your children to state school - do not incur a charge. And quite right too. So why should disabled people be charged for these essential care services?

Leonard Cheshire, the UK's largest charity provider of support services to disabled people, has handed in over 30,000 signatures to the Prime Minister, calling for personal care to be made free of charge. If other readers agree that personal care for disabled should be free , please write to your MP, as the EDPA have done.

FRED KALER, Vice Chair, Evesham and District Pensioners Association, Columbine Grove, Evesham.