A TEAM of carers has been found for paralysed pensioner Muriel Roberts - just two days after The Gazette revealed her plight.

Julia Taylor, proprietor of Carewatch Basingstoke, a new domiciliary care pro-vider, said a team of four carers started looking after Mrs Roberts - who is paralysed from the neck down - on Wednesday.

Last Monday, The Gazette reported how multiple sclerosis victim Mrs Roberts, 67, of Pinkerton Road, South Ham, Basingstoke, needed at least two full-time carers.

Although she and her fam-ily have a grant from the Government Independent Living Fund, they could find no carers to do the work.

Social services claimed that, because of the grant, the family was no longer its responsibility.

Instead, Mrs Roberts' son-in-law Chris Marlow was left to feed, bathe, dress and nurse her while also holding down a job and looking after his disabled wife, Sandra, and their two children.

Chris, an information technology engineer, of Abbey Road, Popley, said: "In the past 12 months, it has been increasingly difficult to find an agency to keep her.

"Three agencies in the past year have taken her on and then backtracked. Social services have just abandoned us."

Following further inquiries by The Gazette, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Security said the government grant did not prevent social services from taking on Mrs Roberts.

She added: "Indeed, several other councils are already helping such people in these circumstances."

As a result, Hampshire Social Services department has agreed to re-assess Mrs Roberts.

Meanwhile, she is being cared for by Carewatch. Mrs Taylor said: "I have managed to get the right people for her.

"In the morning, we help Muriel get up and dressed and do some light domestic work and, later, we give her some lunch. We then put her to bed in the evening.

"She is obviously highly dependent, but we don't foresee any problems."