Robot carers are an insult to our most vulnerable Letters

Your report on the use of robots in care homes follows a familiar and dispiriting pattern (Robots to be used in UK care homes to help reduce loneliness, 7 September). Interventions of all kinds, from art groups to yoga, have been shown to improve residents' mood and mental state, at least temporarily. Most of these interventions clearly have their own intrinsic value, but what most studies fail to account for is the grim and barren social environment that residents too commonly inhabit. Field work has shown that loneliness, isolation and a lack of human interaction is all too common within care homes. These places are generally understaffed and this is the result of chronic underfunding of the care sector.