AN EAST Lancashire MP has praised Social Services and the National Health Service in Lancashire for doing more to help elderly people to be looked after in their own homes.

Peter Pike, MP for Burnley, said the Government had made "great progress" in domiciliary care. However, he said more needed to be done to ensure that older people could stay in their houses rather than end up in residential homes.

In the Commons, Health Minister Stephen Ladyman backed Mr Pike. He explained how since Labour's election victory in 1997 the number of older people receiving intensive home care had risen by 30 per cent.