Fremantle careworkers believe that the standard of care for elderly carehome residents has deteriorated as existing staff are forced to work longer hours, and as poorly-paid, inexperienced new staff are recruited.

And so the millennium shambles on: problems with care standards for the elderly across Britain continue to be investigated and reported in detail.

Doesn't take much to put the numbers together Gamanga told me in 2007. 'Fremantle are cheating us. They make us look after so many people at one time. Most of the homes are short staffed (Fremantle’s annual reports discuss problems with staff retention).'

'Some of the residents haven't got any family, so they take you as their family. They dread when we take days off. It's an important service that we're giving.' Jackie Mitchell, Fremantle careworker, 2008.

'My mother was in the Merrivale resthome,' an elderly man called John Clarke told me at a 2007 strike rally. 'They [the careworkers] looked after her so well. My mother wasn’t rich. She lived in a council flat all her life. [The careworkers] were great to her. They took her out to places and they really looked after her.'

'The whole notion of carework is being derailed. I wouldn’t recommend going into the care sector now. It’s not just the loss of terms and conditions. It’s the whole working ethos. It feels a bit like a warehouse.' Carmel Reynolds, 2007.

Photo: Fremantle strike rally, 10 November 2007.