AN ANGRY daughter says her family is being "destroyed" because of a poor standard of care being provided to her dad.

Jeanette Brown spoke to The Press in December because she feared her father Thomas O'Connell's health was being put at risk by changes to the city's home care service.

She said carers were turning up late or not at all after City of York Council transferred its responsibilities to private firm Goldsborough.

Now, two months later, she says the situation is even worse and described the service as "absolutely appalling".

Mr O'Connell, 79, requires high-dependency care and for the last year carers have had to wash, dress and feed him.

He lives with Jeanette, her husband, Steve, and three of the couple's six children in Princess Drive, Acomb.

He needs to have visits from two carers three times a day, but Jeanette said on many weekends one or both carers are failing to turn up.

She said: "During the week it has been fine, but on the weekend it has been terrible. We can't go anywhere with the family because my dad's a diabetic and if he does not have someone give him his lunch, he could be very poorly.

"My family is just being destroyed by it all.

"We can't go anywhere on a weekend because carers are not turning up."

Jeanette said her husband, or nurses who visit Mr O'Connell, often had to help lift her father out of bed because carers had not turned up.

She said: "I need to be able to live a life with my children and I can't just leave the house on a Saturday or Sunday because I do not know what I will be coming home to."

The problems with Goldsborough follow a council decision to hand care provision to private firms in a shake-up that affected 450 people across the city.

"Before, we knew what was happening and we knew we could go out and we could rely and trust the carers to turn up," Jeanette said.

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "We are looking into the circumstances and we will look at how we can resolve it."

Goldsborough refused to comment.