With regard to the proposed reduction of our community nurses, we are being promised by Prime Minster Gordon Brown that the residents of old people's homes are to be protected by the Human Rights Act for the first time in a significant change in the law.

At the moment, care homes run by the private or voluntary sector are excluded.

Since the act was introduced in 2000 it has been hijacked by the lawyers to use up the £60 million per year provided by the Government to block the deportation of terrorists and to secure parole for criminals who have gone on to commit murder.

Nice big fat fees to the lawyers.

Trevor Phillips, head of the new commission for equality and human rights, tells us the Human Rights Act isn't a weapon of war - it should be a way of protecting people who are at the mercy of authority.

So, I sincerely hope the Mid Essex Primary Care Trust and the Maldon District overview and scrutiny committee will bear in mind that crucial point when decisions are made about the reduction of our community care nurses.

Apart from protecting people from the mercy of authority, our healthcare managers should also be protecting Maldon and district from the mercy of geography, for places like Tillingham and Bradwell that are further by road from a general hospital than anywhere else in the UK.

It is an appalling trek to reach Broomfield by public transport, let alone the huge expense.

Just take the example of old people who simply wish to be in the comfort of their own home in a remote Dengie location. There, they might have easy access to local loved ones and friends, and most importantly, all the tender loving care of a daily community nurse.

Take the nurse away, remove the old person to an acute bed in Broomfield Hospital, then that move opens a can of worms for everyone. A cost of thousands of pounds very quickly, then before the recent healthcare commission's findings, a shameful neglect of older patients in hospital.

The findings are going to be abrogated before they are acted on. By the implementation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, with its potential for human rights abuses that allow over the withdrawal of fluids and nutrition based merely on hearsay and the delegation of power to consent or instruct withdrawal of nutrition to third parties other than the patient's doctor who could be prosecuted if they disagree.

So the law is about to leave many dying elderly patients with few legal safeguards, then top that with the risk of hospital infections and simple neglect by overworked hospital staff - so much for human rights.

All this could happen at any hospital, not just at Broomfield.

Then there is the great need for community nurses to attend those who have recently returned home from hospital surgery. Their needs are still acute, as your correspondent, Daryn Black of Southminster (Standard, September 27) observed on his return from hospital.

Notwithstanding the population of Southminster doubling in the past 18 years, there are now only two doctors as against three doctors in 1984, and now very poor local practice back-up. His needs might have been helped by an extra community nurse.

So, if Mr Brown is serious about using the Human Rights Act properly, he should start by protecting those who are the most vulnerable to abuse and those who are working really heard for human rights in relieving pain, discomfort and neglect in all our communities.

The community nurses - back them, don't sack them.

It would be a real crime, for they have human rights to.

Pat James
Butt Lane
Maldon