GRACE BROWN has, on the face of it, won only a small battle with Thames Water. We hope, though, that it could be quite a significant one that could affect thousands of people in their dealings with utility companies and internet, phone and television firms.

It is a daily frustration for hundreds of people — often women — in trying to deal with their household bills.

If there is a small problem to sort out or a bill to pay, within a busy family, it may only be one person who has the time to sort it.

But if they are not the name on the bill then bureaucratic paralysis ensues, almost as if the concept of two people contributing to one household is almost a bizarre notion.

It turns to farce when a company cold-calls its customers about new services, only to stop when their sales spiel is met with some enthusiasm, because it is not the billpayer who has answered.

Instead of grumbling like so many of us do, pensioner Mrs Brown tackled Thames Water when her husband Malcolm suffered a stroke and the company would not let her pay the bill.

Full credit to Thames for listening and applying some common sense to alter its security set-up. We hope other service companies look at this and learn.