AN ELDERLY diabetic stroke victim from Sidcup claims he is fed-up at being left high and dry by his care company.

Len Baker, 87, says he pays more than £400 a month to Avante Community Support in Erith which is meant to send carers twice a day to get him up in the morning and put him to bed at night.

But the widower of 12 years, who lives on his own in Arlington Close, says the social care provider has failed to send anyone at all on more than five occasions in the last year.

The latest incident occurred on Saturday (January 26) when the retired master carpenter made a distressed call to his daughter Yvonne Finch at 11.30pm having had to put himself to bed, she says.

Mrs Finch, who herself has spinal arthritis, claims her insulin-dependent Dad was left with dangerously low blood sugar levels as a result of the oversight.

He has to take digestive biscuits and juice to bed with him to keep his blood sugar up as the pensioner can end up spending up to 12 hours in bed between carers.

Fen Grove resident Mrs Finch, 60, said: "He’s diabetic for god’s sake.

"You’re not even doing him this favour for free: you are charging him as well.

"It’s a double insult and it’s deplorable you can do this to a human being."

The part-time contact worker dealing with children in foster care says her dad struggles to do up the buttons on his clothing after a stroke around 2003 hospitalised him for nine weeks and left him with poor coordination in his hands.

The type two diabetic took more than an hour to get himself upstairs, partially undressed and into bed on the night no carer appeared, he claims.

The grandfather-of-four said: "What am I supposed to do: sit up all night?

"When you’re sitting here waiting for somebody to come and they don’t turn up you wonder what’s going to happen."

A spokeswoman for Avante said: "We would like to apologise for any inconvenience or distress caused to Mr. Baker. 

"Avante takes issues like this very seriously and having carried out initial investigations, it appears that there was one call missed due to a misunderstanding between the office and the carer allocated to attend. 

"We are in contact with the client’s next of kin and will investigate this further in order to prevent issues like this in the future."