Home helpers have been banned from walking 30 yards across the road to buy milk for a bed-ridden pensioner - because it is not their job.

Rosemary Woodford, 75, from Lancing, takes the drink regularly as a crucial part of her medical treatment and fears her health will decline rapidly following the decision.

She said: "This has caused me a lot of anxiety.

"I have managed to keep going despite my body giving up on me but this could be the final straw."

The pensioner is crippled with arthritis, has only one leg and a plastic hip and knee. She has been confined to her bed for three years, relying on social services staff to care for her every need.

Because she cannot swallow food, her doctor has told her to drink fresh milk every four hours when she takes her tablets.

Carers buy Mrs Woodford a pint of milk and a newspaper from a shop across the road from her home.

But social services bosses have put a stop to the practice.

There is no milk-round near her and she has no friends or family nearby who could go to the shop across the road for her.

She said: "I depend on medication and need milk to take it every four hours. They say because it isn't in my package of care I can't have it.

"My doctor has written to them to say I need I need milk because I am on a very light diet.

"I can't swallow food so I have to take a vitamin supplement, which has kept me alive for more than a year.

"Care assistants come four times a day to look after me but now they have been told they are not allowed to go across the road to the shop for me."

David Morgan, information manager at Age Concern in Sussex, said: "Social services don't provide care themselves - they have contractors to do it for them and some are manic about only doing what is in the contract.

"A little bit of care is needed but they are not prepared to go the extra mile, or the extra 100 yards in this case."

Mr Morgan plans to refer Mrs Woodford to Age Concern's befriending scheme, under which volunteers spend time with the elderly and carry out daily chores such as shopping for groceries.

A spokeswoman from West Sussex County Council said: "Home care assistants wouldn't normally do shopping for clients anyway. We would view it as not being the best use of resources.

"We are talking to Mrs Woodford and trying to find a way she can have a delivery service."

Helen Sampson, owner of Sweets and Things, where Mrs Woodford got her milk, said: "I don't know how they can refuse to get the milk for her. Even if we put the paper under the door for her it would be no use because she's stuck in bed."