A SCRIBBLED note is the only way Barbara Mullins can tell the world she wants to go home.

Suffering a rare and horrific illness, she can no longer walk or talk, relying on her deteriorating handwriting to communicate with her sons from her hospital bed in Wallingford.

Her final wish is to return home, where carers could look after her in her last months.

But her sons Paddy and Chris Mullins claim Oxfordshire County Council has wasted the past two months trying to put her in a nursing home.

The Royal British Legion poppy collector was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy two years ago. The untreatable disease destroys the nerve cells that control her balance, mobility, vision and swallowing.

She lost her speech last September, her sight is fading and she will soon be left trapped in her body, fully aware of what is going on, but unable to move a muscle.

Since March 5, she has been asking the council to take her home, but the authority has not signed off the payments to fund 24-hour home care.

Instead, County Hall has suggested a series of nursing homes, which her sons say would be cheaper for the council to fund.

Her written note to the Oxford Mail simply reads: “Want 2 go home coz friends can visit. [I have lived there] 40 years. No nursing home. Want to go home.”

Chris Mullins, 49, said: “She wants to go home to die. Our problem is that faceless bureaucrats are very quick to sign a cheque to get her into a home, but it is a brick wall when you ask whether she can go home to die.

“Try as we might, we cannot get anybody at social services to make a decision and sign the money for her to go home.

“Mum herself has told them she just wants to go home, but we just keep going round and round in circles.”

It would cost £795 a week for a nursing home, of which the council will pay £527 a week for 12 weeks, according to Chris Mullins.

Mrs Mullins would then have to fund the bills herself.

However, it would cost £750 a week for 24-hour care, of which the council would pay £650 for an indefinite period.

Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Paul Smith said staff were working to get Mrs Mullins out of hospital and back home to Lewknor. But they had asked her to move into a nursing home until care was arranged and her home adapted.

He said: “This lady has complex needs and there has been concern to establish that going home was feasible and the best option for her needs to be met.

“We fully understand that this is the wish of Mrs Mullins and have agreed funding for this to happen. While Mrs Mullins is in the nursing home, we will work urgently to put the arrangements in place to get her home and we hope, without complications, that this can be achieved quickly.”