PENSIONERS fighting for the rights of the elderly rallied against the privatisation of care homes in a public display of 'grey power'.

Around 100 campaigners from the North Staffordshire Pensioners' Convention gathered amid growing fears about rising prices and falling standards at profit-making private care homes.

Campaigners waved 'grey power' placards and blew whistles after a public meeting held yesterday at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

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Stoke-on-Trent City Council closed six of its 12 care homes over a 12-month period up to September last year under the Living Well, Ageing Well scheme.

And Staffordshire County Council has boarded up seven of its homes over the last two years as part of the Changing Lives programme.

Critics have said the closures are a way of cutting costs and are concerned that privately-run alternatives will not be the same.

Convention chairman Alex Shaw fears remaining private care homes will hike their prices because they are over-subscribed.

The 69-year-old said: "There are no vacancies in care homes for elderly people in Stoke-on-Trent.

"The care in the council-run care homes was excellent, but we are worried that demand will outstrip supply and prices will go up and up because the homes are run for profit.

"Privatised care homes are businesses, they are concerned with making money. To them the homes are just cogs in a wheel."

The rally was part of the wider Blow the Whistle on Elder Abuse campaign, which encourages care workers who witness abuse to expose their employers.

Eileen Chubb, from Kent, who helped form the Compassion in Care charity after witnessing elder abuse in the home she worked in, was the main speaker at the public meeting. She said: "We are looking for accountability, a care system for which the Government can be held responsible.

"At the moment it's a whitewash, but if we can draw attention to the people who have suffered then they won't have suffered in vain."

Campaigner Mick Jones, from Trafalgar Road, Hartshill, had to move his mother-in-law to a private care home when a council facility closed.

The 65-year-old said: "We have failed in our efforts to keep care homes open so far. The policy-makers don't know what effect their decisions are having on the people. They're not helping us, they're hurting us."

Graham Hill, aged 69, from Grindley Lane, Blythe Bridge, said: "It is a sad state of affairs. The people who made Great Britain great are being neglected. I have first hand experience of it with my mother."

The campaign is backed by Stoke-on-Trent North MP Joan Walley, who pledged to take the campaigners' concerns to parliament.

She said: "I am against privatisation, but we do have private care homes so we have to be sure they are up to scratch."