Home care services for the elderly in Wales have been branded a lottery with costs depending on where you live.

An investigation by the BBC Wales Welsh-language current affairs programme Taro Naw reveals there are no national regulations or guidelines for councils to follow.

Some Welsh authorities charge between �5 and �8 per hour for care.

An elderly person can be charged hundreds of pounds for weekly care in the home by some authorities.

'Sense of bitterness'

Other authorities in Wales charge a flat rate and some never charge more than �22 - however many hours care is provided.

Other authorities use a mixture of hourly and flat rate methods to charge for home care.

The lack of any proper system or strategy in Wales for the care for the elderly is highlighted by the programme.

There is also said to be a sense of bitterness felt by the elderly at the recent 75p rise in pensions and the lack of progress in government promises to prevent the elderly from selling their homes to pay for residential care.

'Elderly are suffering'

Lyndon Lloyd from Age Concern in Ceredigion, said a commissioner for the elderly is as much a requirement in Wales as the recently-announced Commissioner for Children.

Aled Griffiths, head of Business and Social Administration at the University College of Wales, Bangor, said the care system is not only a lottery but a shambles and that elderly people are suffering because of the system as it is.

He has callsed on the National Assembly for Wales to regulate the home care system as a matter of urgency.