• FURTHER to your article on a nursing home placed in “special measures” (Extra, January 10), I have just buried my elderly friend who died in a nursing home.

I raised many concerns over four years about her care but might as well have been banging my head against a brick wall. I was ignored and abused for raising concerns. How can an elderly person with dementia make a complaint?

When I raised a problem about the manageress of the home she was in, the Care Quality Commission told me I should not complain as it is a hard job being a manageress of a care home. Solicitors are the only people that the authorities will listen to.

Make sure you appoint a power of attorney before you get ill or get dementia. The abuse of the elderly has to stop. I wrote to three MPs and five councillors about the neglect and abuse of my friend – but they did nothing.

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