Several umbrella groups in the care sector were today hurriedly redrafting a letter to the Health Secretary after an original that they planned to send was reported on by the BBC and then found to contain inaccuracies.

The original letter to Andrew Lansley was intended to voice the groups’ impatience and frustration at the lack of pace and urgency in government reforms of care provision for the elderly.

According to the BBC, it warned that the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, which was set up by the coalition government in July, had already missed a crucial deadline and seemed to have lost momentum.

The letter was signed by Jane Ashcroft of the English Community Care Association; Mary Bryce of Ceretas; Andrew Larpent from the National Care Forum; Mike Padgham, president of UK Home Care Association; Nick Sanderson from the Association of Retirement Village Operators; Ian Turner from the Registered Nursing Home Association, and Nadra Ahmed of the National Care Association.

It claimed that the deadline for the “presentation of agreed criteria against which options could be judged... has now passed, with no outcome”, and warned that at this rate another Parliament might expire without any policy changes being made.

But after the BBC ran a story this morning reporting some of the contents of the letter, none of the groups contacted by Civil Society could produce a copy.  Eventually a spokesman for the Anchor Trust, whose chief executive Jane Ashcroft signed the original letter on behalf of the English Community Care Association, said it was being rewritten.

He said that apparently the criteria referred to in the letter has actually been published and so the letter may not be entirely accurate.  The signatories were trying to get to the bottom of the situation and would be rewriting the letter.

In the original, the groups had complained that the existing system for long-term care of the elderly is “outdated, under-funded and misunderstood” and said they welcomed the requirement of the commission that it delivers a preferred option to government, “bringing the prospect of real change in the medium term”.

The funding and delivery of long-term care remains a major challenge for UK society. The current system is needs and means-tested, with those who have assets exceeding £23,250 having to pay their own costs.

According to the BBC, the Department of Health had responded that reform remains a government priority and that the Commission would report by July 2011, as originally planned.