AIBU to think if you're healthy you should give up your delivery slots

[Sarah510]

Just thinking it's not really fair if you're healthy, and have a car, to use delivery slots from the supermarket. If you're healthy I think you should just go to the shop… It was different when we were all working and had no time etc etc, but most of us are wfh now and no reason we cant do a trip to the supermarket. Would help sick people and key workers etc by freeing up delivery spots.

Agree that maybe fortnightly deliveries could help alleviate the difficulties & possibly make it a bit fairer.

Im never giving up my slot. Booked 4 weeks ago,
I could always get next day before the world was turned upside down and inside out.
Besides Tesco have suspended monthly delivery payments now and slots are vulnerable.

I agree with alloutoffucks.

You will always get a cohort of humans who will grab any lifeboat available, regardless of who they have to deprive in the process.

No doubt the same people who moan about nanny States and ever tightening laws when the govt is obliged to step in to ensure fairness.

Hang on, I thought the guidance was to stay at home and use delivery services where possible?

So... if I go to the supermarket I'll have someone scanning my basket to make sure I'm only buying what they deem essential and reporting me on social media if it isn't.

If I stay at home and utilise a delivery service I'm stealing the slot from a vulnerable person?

If I go to the shops more than once in ten days I'm a danger to society.

If I buy a few extra tins so I can limit my shopping trips I'm a panic buyer and a disgrace.

Can't really win here....

Me and dh are healthy but dh lost his job so now we have no car (company car) so we occasionally do get a delivery. Once every 2 weeks maybe and I walk to the local shop if need be in between. We're quite rural. I get cross with the healthy people I know that have a car though and take up the delivery slots.

Can't win either way.

This is so true.

Stockpilers were the enemy and now they are the heroes for staying in and not needing to go out.
People going to crowded supermarkets were the enemy and now are the heroes for not taking delivery slots.

The reality is that most people are trying to do the best they can in extremely unusual and difficult circumstances.

@Zomblie snap!

@Zomblie. There is a massive difference between idiots Complaining that they saw someone putting a bottle of wine in their trolley or that they saw their neighbour walking in the direction of the shops 3 times in the last week, and people expressing concern that vulnerable, ill and other needy groups can't get vital delivery slots while people who have no impediment to going to the shops hog them.

What Bringmesunshine wrote is right but there’s more to it.

At a press conference the Housing Minister stated that they were making special arrangements to look after the elderly and vulnerable, that’s the 1.5 million.

But, the phrase ‘elderly and vulnerable’ somehow got changed to ‘extremely vulnerable’ to coronavirus. In fact Sainsbury’s site honestly describes it as Coronavirus extremely vulnerable. And the list of conditions doesn’t cover the other 7.2 million over 70’s who have been told to self isolate - thus someone whose had chemo etc., may or may not be on the list, depending on their current condition.

A friend of ours with diabetes was told by her GP she would be on the list, but no, she’s not and there's nothing he can do. Another friend has Parkinson’s, not on the list. There are younger people, much younger than us who should be on the list, but aren’t.

We’re in our early eighties, thought we’d be included amongst the elderly and vulnerable. We’ve shopped at Waitrose ever since they opened in our town. Never needed home delivery, but as we’re self isolating we certainly do now. Despite our membership card we can’t even register for it. Sainsbury’s won’t even let us register either. Fortunately, our family, local shops, neighbours will ensure we’re OK. But the advice was do on-line shopping where possible!

Most communities appear to have volunteer groups, ours says they will help anyone. That’s all I can suggest.

It's a difficult one. Yes, in theory. But, personally, I am maximizing my online shopping (ordering more than usual in order to book one slot every other week) and regularly offer all my neighbors to share my slots (we have a WA group). Out of 5, 3 are elderly or key workers. None accepted.

I have a little boy who was very sick at birth (now recovered well but still at risk) and it's only my partner and I in this country. No family who could help if we get sick. We are not leaving home, no matter how nice the weather is outside or how many items missing in my online shopping. We are making sacrifices (honestly, they are small sacrifices) as there is too much at stake for us.
So, yes in theory we are healthy and in the 'good' age range, but very reluctant to take any risks...

@AmIaWeed 100%

@Amotherof6

If you are using the Tesco site, you need to login around midnight, usually one day of delivery slots will be added each 24 hours. I even found a click and collect one when I logged in at 5am oneday (I woke early and decided to try it). . I got one home delivery when I logged in at around 12.15am, just before going to bed one evening.

What would be better is home deliveries being limited to one per household per fortnight

I don’t understand how anyone is able to manage with a fortnightly delivery especially when half the stuff is missing

Expect I’ll get flamed now

@teainthetardis, not flaming you at all (:-)) but just to try and explain, as one delivery every other week is what I have been trying recently. Before Covid-19 times I used to do weekly online shopping and I had to adapt.

Changes I made were:

• more fresh veg, that I consume first
• frozen veg for when the fresh is gone
• more 'long lasting' fruit such as apples and pears
• more fish and meet, I freeze let's say half of it
• some fresh bread to be used immediately or frozen, and some 'half cooked-oven ready' bread
• I have a milkman but otherwise I would freeze some milk or try to get UHT (I still have some as I always have some in the house just in case)
• towards the end of the fortnight I shop from the pantry and get creative. I always discover there is more food than I thought there would, just not my first choice of food or it requires some imagination to be put together ha ha

Maybe with fortnightly deliveries, could be more availability so less missing possibly?

Any frozen stuff we’ve tried to order has been unavailable. Ditto a lot of store cupboard stuff. We are making do but with the item limits and missing items it just is really hard to manage - luckily as we are vulnerable we have access to a weekly slot.

There is stuff missing regardless of how often you order...

Oh and we have very little freezer space and also can’t leave the house at all.

I am on the list of extremely vulnerable. The list that has now gone out to supermarkets and I have had emails from all but Ocado offering me priority slots.

Just to be clear this is for those with very serious conditions like cancer and immune suppression not just those who are vulnerable through age / diabetes / obesity/ other underlying health conditions.

Last week there was a delay in getting that list out and I couldn't get a slot despite having accounts with all the supermarkets.

It was quite worrying really. The fact that I have a letter telling me to stay indoors for 12 weeks because I am unlikely to recover from the virus along with the inability to even shop online.

So I went onto the Gov website set up for the shielded group and registered that I needed help getting food. What I meant was I needed help buying food from an online supermarket.

Today a food parcel arrived.
I am feeling mixture of gratitude, embarrassment and awe at the system.

I'm embarrassed because I don't need it because I now have a supermarket delivery slot and I would rather it had gone to someone who needed it.
However I know that the admin and logistics of this are phenomenal and it must of necessity be a blunt edged sword.
I am in awe that this country is capable of doing this.

We are family of 4 normally healthy adults. Not vulnerable at all.
3 if us have the virus.
Not an online slot to be had from any supermarket.

I am so so lucky that we have some local friends who have done a big shop for us because otherwise we'd be completely screwed.

If you are using the Tesco site, you need to login around midnight, usually one day of delivery slots will be added each 24 hours

Actually you have to be sitting there on your computer or tablet at 11.40 pm and keep refreshing, if you leave it till midnight you're too late.

Why the hell does Tesco make it so that people are kept up until midnight stressed out and frustrated, then go away empty handed until 24 hours later. Surely to God they can get their web developers to change to time they release the slots, and come up with a way of allocating the slots more evenly through the 24 hour period.

I'm soon going to abandon it, and have to drive 100 miles with a car full of shopping for DM so she has a few weeks store cupboard provisions, as she doesn't drive so can't buy a lot of stuff and carry it home on foot, and I'm worried she is exposing herself to risk every time she goes to Tesco.

I wouldn't dream of guilting people to "give up their delivery slot". Ffs how do I know what their circumstances are. That's callous to even suggest it.

I ve managed to get Tesco click and collect without staying up all hours, I go on pretty much everyday at random times. I have found late afternoon best usually a week before

It seems like things are getting sorted out now - food parcels, community support groups, I know councils are offering support, and supermarkets are approaching all their already registered vulnerable customers and those on the government list to arrange deliveries.

Sadly there will be cases that fall between the gaps despite everyone's best efforts but that will happen no matter what the rest of us give up. We don't need busy bodies announcing that everyone else needs to keep sacrificing. This isn't many people's idea of fun, but let's not attempt to turn it into outright misery just to show off how virtuous we are...

It seems like things are getting sorted out now - food parcels, community support groups, I know councils are offering support, and supermarkets are approaching all their already registered vulnerable customers and those on the government list to arrange deliveries.

Is this your 1st hand experience? Here it seems a lot of hype and no action

My mother lives in a village of many committees- very affluent largely- commuter village. She is 85 with an extremely vulnerable husband. She has been ringing round trying to get help for some of her peers who are alone without family (in some cases without their regular private carers) and she just hits blank wall after bank wall. They refer on to someone who then sends you back to 3 people ago.

I am sure that in a village of 3000 there must be some help but seemingly there isn't. I am sure that this village has been ticked off someone list as there is a local person manning a helpline- but they have no support to offer.

@daisychain01 no one's suggesting targeting individual people and asking them to give up their slot. They're saying that people who know themselves that they have no impediment to going to the supermarket (other than feeling the same concerns that we all do) should not be holding onto slots while Ill, vulnerable etc struggle to find free ones.