Home helps forced to give OAPs cold food

Published on Tuesday 16 February 2010 09:03

HOME helps who used to cook hot food for elderly people in Edinburgh now only have time to leave cold sandwiches and microwave meals.

Previous council cutbacks mean that the carers are able to spend just 30 minutes in each home instead of an hour.

And critics say that means that once they have attended to an elderly person's other needs, there is no time left to prepare a meal.

Labour's Leith councillor Gordon Munro said he was shocked to find one of his constituents being left a piece of bread, a yoghurt, a cheese sandwich, and a microwaveable macaroni cheese to survive on for the day.

He said: "It is increasingly happening because home helps are restricted to half an hour and in some cases it's taking all this time just to get people up and dressed. It exposes the sham that half an hour is enough time to do everything.

"Before they would have time to make a pan of soup or another hot meal but they can't do that anymore because they've only got half an hour and there's not enough time to do everything.

"The nutritional value of these meals hasn't been worked out because the home helps are just throwing together what there is in the person's house.

"This doesn't surprise me because I think the time allocated is inadequate for home helps to actually get people up, washed, dressed and cook them a proper meal.

"They have got to gauge what the most important thing to do for the person is, and I certainly wouldn't want to be in that position, making that kind of judgement. Basically the choice is between making sure the person is dressed in warm clothing and is presentable or preparing a meal for them."

The time which home helps can spend in each home was scaled back in 2007 as part of a money-saving shake-up of home care provision.

One health and social care insider said home helps used to have time to make meals such as omelettes or stew, but now it seems that microwave meals were being increasingly accepted as a suitable alternative.

She said: "They don't have time to even make porridge now.

"The director's guidance is that they get one hot meal a day, but that is a frozen meal re-heated in the microwave. Microwave meals have always had their place but there should be some variety along with that. For people to have the only hot meal they are given in a day as a microwave meal is not acceptable."

City council bosses agreed that the case of Councillor Munro's constituent was not acceptable but insisted half an hour was long enough to prepare a decent meal.

A spokesman said: "There should be no reason why a meal like this is served as half an hour is plenty of time for a healthy and nutritious meal to be prepared and the council has expert dieticians who can advise on achieving this balance.

"If a home care worker is not able to prepare something suitable within their allocated timescale then they should report this to their line manager and the visit times will be reassessed.

"We have consistently asked for specific named examples of problems such as this so we can investigate but we have not received them from the trade unions or other sources."

A spokesman for Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland said: "In an ideal world, we would have fresh, hot meals prepared for them, but we have to be pragmatic and look at the alternatives and how we can make the best of a situation within the budget."