Meals on wheels does not exist anymore?

[Wheelymeals]

About 20 years ago, there was a meals on wheels service in my local area. The idea was that elderly people who could not cook would get a freshly cooked meal delivered to their door paid for by the council.

I had to enquire today for an elderly lady and the council said they closed the scheme several years ago. So I asked what are these people meant to do.

Option 1 - buy frozen food and microwave it.

Option 2 - pay for a food delivery service that is a business and also just available for lunch.

Option 3 - if they qualify for a carer, the carer will help them with food.

This does not make sense to me. I'm tried to look on the council website and they advertise the Option 2 I describe above.

Is this everywhere or did I misunderstand?

If your relative would need to pay for their care- you are the customer and the carers will stay as long as you like and do what you need them to do (obviously within reason) in early days of having carers we paid for a longer morning call and the carer could make lunch for example whilst they were there. When his care needs increased, we put in a lunch call too. The evening carer we paid for long enough to be able to prepare a simple meal or a microwave meal with freshly cooked vegetables. This isn’t an option for everyone sadly. Money certainly bought choices when it came to care.

My dad had a carer who came in twice a dad once in the morning and once in the evening .

We have meals on wheels but its privately run.
Like others have suggested microwave meals are the other alternative.
Is there a social worker involved?

M and S have some reasonable microwavable meals that can be frozen, and Cook also have nutritious ready made meals from the freezer.

@Rocknrolla21 I'm a carer and would completely agree with this. I wouldn't ever advise my clients to use these food delivery services. They are so outrageously expensive.

I have been thinking of offering my clients a home prepared meal made by me at home and then reheated but it unfortunately looks too tricky on a legal / paperwork basis sadly.

You want to look at Parsleybox. Small traditional microwave meals delivered in batches by post.

When the council cuts came these are exactly the places it happened. Could cut staff and get rid of premises.

I actually worked with someone who does this now as a business in her small town. Makes meals to microwave.
My friends dad has been struggling with food, I told her to get M&S kids meals with a side.

My dad had Dementia so he wouldn't have ate or would simply not think of feeding himself ,that was why a carer was essential .

Agree the Cook meals are much nicer than WF & similar: the 'child' size meals are actually a good size for my 90 year old mum ... and I also stock her up with M & S / Waitrose ready meals .. she can add fresh veg/salad/fruit.

My clients tend to have Wiltshire farm foods or family buy ready meals but our local butcher actually does a ready meal service where you can order online and have them delivered and they are much nicer so it would be worth looking to see if there was anything like that in the area.

They are beyond awful. We have to have an annual refresher training week, and the Wiltshire farm meals get brought up every year when we get to the bit where we have to make their food look appealing. There is literally no way to make a spoonful of grey mash, 2 hard sausages and a wrinkly carrot look appealing

OP check out your local AgeUK branch's website: many of them will deliver fresh-made meals during the week (they're cooking on site for people who come in for lunch, then just pack up some for volunteers to drive out to clients). You pay, but at least you know the money is going to a good cause, and the food is fresh. They could then have carers/ ready meals at the weekend?

Exactly. I'm frequently amazed by how naive people are - they vote for council cuts then years down the line are surprised when it starts to affect them.

Meals on wheels vanished from my area (South West) many years ago.

DM gets meals delivered from a local cafe who are on Just Eat.

My DGM used to deliver Meals on Wheels. They were heavily reliant on volunteers I suspect a lot of that potential volunteer workforce is still working these days.- she would only have been in her 50s.

When I was looking in to it just pre-Covid, about 40% of LAs still had a meals on wheels service.

Our area still does. It's provided by a private company and paid for by customers, no LA subsidy. It was £5 a day back in 2019

DM has Alzheimer’s and despite living alone could not microwave anything - she cannot even use a toaster now or make a sandwich
Social care package did not work as they didn’t come at times when she wanted to get up, eat or go to bed - so she just told them not to come back and she masks very well so they listened
We manage her ourselves by making plated buffet style meals which she picks at, ready made sandwiches and lots of other things that she can just grab - eg ready buttered scones, savoury or sweet pies that can be eaten cold - we leave fruit out in sight so that gets grazed on
Any family member passing nearby at a mealtime will microwave a ready meal and do a few veg
We also use Uber eats - Deliveroo etc - she loves a maccies or pizza delivery!
once a week DS and I take her out for a meal and DD does same
It’s time consuming but works best for our family

Apart from cost saving, they've almost definitely been ousted by supermarket deliveries in the past 20 years.

For anyone in Herts, Beds, West Sussex or Hampshire, HILS offer this service.

The private company (option 2) charges £9 per lunch time meal. They can add a cold diner option of sandwich and crisps for £4 extra. The menu does not look healthy - think pie & mash type food.

I am making sure that I gather all the options for her.

I also looked at local takeaway deliveries for her. Again not the healthiest option.

Over the winter/lent it might also be worth looking at local 'warm spaces' and churches doing lent lunches: some only do coffee/pastries but we do soup through December/Jan and then again for lent. Just another way of accessing food.

They won’t cook but will reheat/zap a meal or make a sandwich.

DGM had an old people’s home near her that did a meals on wheels service. The delivery lady popped in and put the meal on the kitchen counter each day and collected the previous days plate. It’s worth asking around.

I think you might be expecting too much though. Pie and mash is an absolutely fine meal. If she absolutely can't cook or even microwave a meal, then she will have to pay handsomely for the service. I don't know of any service that will make a 'healthy' meal from scratch unless it's a personal chef.

We have a local cafe that does a late morning and a late afternoon food drop, obviously it's a commercial service but pretty reasonable, £6 per meal including delivery, you can have one or both. Council stopped over 10 years ago

It exists where we are but it's not council run, it's all run by volunteers.