Meals-on-wheels staff only spend a minute with each customer
The people who deliver meals-on-wheels to the elderly spend an average of just over a minute with them when they do so, according to new research reported yesterday at a major social services conference.
The average contact time a care worker has when delivering meals to the elderly is just 71 seconds, says the research unveiled at the annual conference of the Advisory Body For Social Services Catering in Hinckley, Leicestershire.
The conference was told that from a sample of 100 meals-on-wheels deliveries there was only one case of the old person's house being entered and the food being put onto a plate.
Dr John Edwards, who carried out the research for Bournemouth University, said the necessity for speed explained the minimal human contact.
He said: "It's cost driven and if the food is hot there are food safety issues. They have got to be quick. The meals-on-wheels service is genuinely thought of by local authorities as having a social function. But it actually doesn't go further than checking that they are still alive."
Angela Elkholy, contract compliance officer for Tower Hamlets council in east London, said that its contractor that prepares and delivers the meals has reduced the total delivery time for a 35 people from two-and-a-half hours to one-and-a-half.
She added that this might change if it was decided that certain elderly people needed so spend more time with the person that delivered their meals.
She said that this "may be more cost effective than hiring another carer who comes and sits with them for half an hour twice a week."
