Is this fair?

[Cazzles]

Good evening all 😁
This is my first time ever posting and sorry if it's the wrong place!😬🫣
I'm just looking for other people's opinions and as to whether I'm getting upset/annoyed for no reason.
A friend of mine's father is in a care home. My friends mother visits every single day and whilst there, will feed my friends father his lunch. My friends mother (and I don't know whether she asked or whether she was offered by the care home) is now having her lunch there, everyday, 7 days a week, and eats whilst feeding her husband. The meal is provided by the home. I don't know whether the family are paying for the care privately or if it's funded. My problem is that the home is charging the mother £10 a day for the small lunch and pudding she has. That's £70 a week on top of the at least £900 weekly care home fees.
I think it's absolutely disgusting that they are charging £10, especially when it's a mediocre meal and very small portions. I understand there being some sort of charge/fee, but £10!?! Is that a reasonable price to be expected to pay? Or are they taking the mick?
Sorry again if not the right place to post!
Thank you from a concerned friend.

@Cazzles , it’s a lot isn’t it? The thing is care homes are businesses and upselling is part of any business model. The lady would do well to take a sarni with her.

That sounds like a fairly standard meal cost to me, she doesn't have to order it from them
For context, at our sixth form college it would cost more than that to have a main meal with drink and desert

You can't expect it to be free and probably she will get tea/coffee when the husband has one. She could take a packed lunch.

I don't think it's much in itself, you can easily spend that in Pret for instance but its just that it's 7 days a week so it's really adding up. It's a bit sad as she obviously just wants to be with her husband and make sure he eats. I wonder if she could go at cup of tea time instead and have a piece of cake with him etc or morning coffee/biscuits 💐

Thank you. That's exactly what I suggested today, take a packed lunch and then have a hot meal once they get home. The response was that the mother is reluctant to cook once home as it's gone 5pm by then and doesn't want to cook for just 1. The mother was relying on microwave meals but stopped doing that because the doctor said there was too much salt in them and weren't a healthy meal. (Bare in mind she is 89 years of age)

Thanks again for your reply 😁
It's just really bothered me. 😞

I can see it both ways. Yes it’s no way worth £10, but what if everyone’s wife / daughter / neighbour wanted to sit and have lunch everyday? They’re a business not a charity.

£900 a week is very cheap, perhaps they are charging the £10 to boost their income.

Friend’s DM might not now need to buy a £4 ready meal. Therefore the cost per day might just be £6. Also if she is spared putting on her gch , the family could actually view it as reasonable exchange.
At 89, I would let her eat with husband and not force her to do the sandwich business. Time is precious. This is what rainy day money is for.

When my husband was in hospital last year, part of his recovery from a stroke was eating more normally ie sitting at a table rather than in bed. I would go to the day room with him and help him with his meal. Often the catering team would give me my evening meal so we could eat together - saying the food had to be used or would go to waste (not sure if this was true or just a kind way to help me not feel awkward). That simple kindness helped a lot: I didn’t have to cook for myself when I got home (knackered) and there’s something important about sharing food. Charging does seem a bit sharp, not very humane either.

It's her choice - she obviously prefers to pay for a meal that someone else has cooked, and someone else will clear away and wash up after. It's worth £10 to her.

And really, it has nothing to do with you.

@Cazzles I would happily pay the money for my mother to eat with my father in his nursing home. The home actually offer this for free as long as you don’t abuse it. Sadly our mother refuses to do this even tough I think Dad would enjoy it. At least your friends mother is eating a hot meal. Worth the money I would say, we spend our time worrying about our mother and her eating habits. Joking aside prepare to be inundated with requests for the address of a home charging £900 per week ❤️

My BIL's care home charges £5 for visitors to eat lunch. I agree with the idea of her going after lunch and have tea/cake if she's finding it expensive. The home obviously manages to feed him without help for other meals so I assume it's more to do with the communal activity. Or she could alternate

My relative used to go and have lunch with his wife every day when she was in a care home and they didn’t charge him. To be honest though he was feeding her and caring for her so allowing the staff to get on with looking after the rest of the residents.

£10 for a hot meal, including dessert, that somebody else serves and and cleans up sounds like good value to me. You don’t say where in the country this is, but in most of the UK you’d struggle to get this for less outside of a self-service canteen. I think the fact that she can go and have lunch with her husband every day is lovely for both of them.

you say she doesn’t want/would find it difficult to cook for herself. My father was getting meals-on-wheels 5 years ago and it was more than £5 then. So £10 is not that much more, and it’s a freshly cooked meal, served on proper china. It will also be nutritionally dense, designed to deliver a lot of calories in a small volume of food.

It’s also saving her from relapsing on to “the biscuit diet”.

I think it sounds a lot but on the other hand I would look at it this way: £5 per day for the meal, including a comforting pudding (which is fair enough, I think) and £5 per day for the ease and convenience. It's better that she has a nutritious cooked meal daily without the stress/hassle/mental and physical exhaustion of having to think about and prepare it herself every day.

It allows her to eat with her husband and it provides a reasonable cooked meal each day without her having to cook it or prepare sandwiches. She clearly feels she prefers it and that it works for her so it is worth the money.

My mother is 89 and lives in her own home but cannot prepare meals because she can't stand for long enough. I could absolutely picture her taking advantage of this if she had ever, when my father was alive, been in the situation your friend's mother is. She wouldn't want to live on sandwiches every day and would have hoped to spend a fair amount of time with him most days if she could have.

I think care is eyewateringly expensive (especially to the uninitiated), plus any extras you want/need and precious little of it is state funded. My mother has to pay several hundred pounds a week for her carers to visit otherwise she would have to move to a care home, which would be much more.

What your friend's mother is paying for her lunches obviously does add up, but if she she isn't struggling too much financially, it feeds her well and makes her as happy as possible for now then so be it. There's such a thing as money well spent.

Offset against the £70 per week what she would spend buying and cooking the food for herself at home and I should think it would be more likely half that.

Leave it.

The cost is over the top but hopefully it's half way healthy and it's hot. There's also the psychological benefit of eating together, even if it is after a fashion.

If she's willing and able to pay the price I think it's OK - it saves the faff of having to prepare a packed lunch to take every day, and it would cost around £10 for a couple of things from say Pret.

It's nice for the lady to sit and eat with her husband.

£10 for a hot meal, including dessert, that somebody else serves and and cleans up sounds like good value to me.

It is good value, it's also optional, I don't see the issue here.

It's especially nice that she gets to eat with her husband every day without worrying about trying to bring food with her.

I sat with my Mum for 4 days and nights as she was entering her final days.
I was offered toast/jam, scrambled egg at breakfast, a hot meal and desert at lunch, and something like quiche/salad or home Cornish pasty for supper. Together with endless cups of coffee.

They never asked for a penny, and despite me offering to pay, they refused.

I guess every care home is different. Mum’s was a small independent home with just 15 beds and was very homely.

I saw firsthand how wonderful they were and will remember their kindness as long as I live.

@Borntobeamum I suspect there’s also a difference between someone sitting with someone for their final few days, and someone having their lunch there every day for possibly years.

@Borntobeamum that's so lovely. I'm so glad they did that for you and that the kindness remains with you. 💐

I guess it's a bit more feasible when it's a matter of days.

My fil visits mil and eats with her every day. However her dementia care home fees are £2,000 a week. They've never mentioned charging him and encourage him to go to see her, except when they row usually over money. Every home will be different and if they are charging lower fees then I could see they maybe want to recoup the money.

Oh I agree, but they also hosted my husbands and mine Ruby wedding anniversary a month prior as Mum was suffering from Dementia and we couldn’t take her out to a restaurant as she was very difficult to deal with. This was totally their idea and I just took the food and they prepared the most amazing feast for us, and cleared it all away after.

Looking back now, I’m quite emotional remembering how caring they were to not only mum, but the whole family. 💗