Britain has just one carer per 100 pensioners a smaller proportion than anywhere else in the developed world, figures show. According to an international survey, Ireland has three times as many carers per 100 pensioners. The US has five times as many and Sweden has 12 times as many. The figures, from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which represents industrialised nations, help explain the poor quality of care in many of our residential homes, as well as the appalling standards of home-help services, which last month were described as an affront to the human rights of the elderly. The number of personal carers including those working in residential homes and home helps has almost halved since the late 1990s. In 1998, there were more than 161,000 in Britain. By 2009, this had fallen by 40 per cent to 97,500. In particular, the number of home helps had halved. Last month, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission revealed that overstretched carers routinely spend less than 15 minutes with pensioners in their homes forcing them to choose between being washed and being fed a hot meal. Older people were regularly left malnourished, while others were abandoned in bed for 17 hours. The shortfall of paid carers has left millions of families struggling to cope with looking after loved ones. The OECD figures compare full-time care workers, including those based in care homes and those who work in the community as home helps, in different countries. In the UK, the number of so-called \"personal carers\" who do not include nurses employed in 1998 was 161,520. But this fell to 97,465 in 2009, working out at just one carer per 100 pensioners the lowest in Western Europe. In residential homes, the number of carers has fallen from 70,752 to 55,701. Home helps have fallen from 90,769 to 41,764, down 54 per cent. Ros Altmann, of the over-50s group Saga, said: \"It\'s a national disgrace that we have devoted so little to care in this country, and it\'s quite clear we have not taken the issue of care as seriously as our neighbours. \"Other societies seem to have more respect for older people.\" From / Gulf News