Meals on wheels are£2.75 dearer here

Health Minister Edwin Poots revealed the higher price when asked by Foyle MLA Colum Eastwood whether any of the Trusts were deviating from the £1.50 cost stipulated by the Department. He advised the highest possible charge for a meal here was £4.25.

This is considerably more than £1.50 in the Belfast and Southern Trusts, £2 in the South Eastern Trust, and £2.20 in the Northern Trust.

However, the local authority also charges the lowest amount for meals at its lower limit with the service costing just £1.40 - 10 pence lower than the DHSSPS stipulation. Thus the charge for a meal here ranges between £1.40 and £4.25.

According to the Health Minister the Western Trust is able to provide the service at a cost of between £2.60 and £5 per meal. This compares with £4.76 in the Northern Trust, £4.57-£5.39 in the Southern Trust and £4.91 in the South Eastern Trust.

The Belfast Trust was unable to provide information on unit costs due to the range of variable costs involved.

Mr Poots stated: “My Department has written to the Chief Executive of each of the HSC Trusts to seek assurance regarding compliance with the Departmental Circular on charging, or to specify when they will bring their charging practice into compliance.

“All Trusts have now confirmed either current compliance with the Circular or compliance from May 1, 2012 at the latest.”

Earlier this year Mr Poots told the Assembly: “Meals on wheels or community meals continue to be provided or arranged by the HSC trusts for vulnerable people where a needs assessment shows that a person is unable to secure a nutritious cooked meal and would therefore be at risk of malnutrition should a meals service not be provided.

“There are no plans to make substantive changes to the availability of the service to current recipients, and, indeed, the trusts have recently introduced a common set of clear, consistent access criteria.

“That should promote a clearer understanding of the service and of how and when it should be provided for all those involved in providing and receiving community meals.”

Over 1000 people in the Western Trust area were receiving meals on wheels this time last year.

Addressing the provision of community meals before the Stormont Health Committee last month the Western Trust Director of Primary care, Older people’s Services and Nursing Mr Alan Corry Finn outlined the scale of the task of providing meals on wheels here.

He explained how there are currently 31 providers in the Western Trust and that this was a historic arrangement inherited from legacy trusts. “In keeping with the local community and the rurality of our trust, we have small local providers to make sure that the meals service is accessible for all.

“We supply around 149,000 meals a year. We served 1,026 clients in 2011, ranging from people receiving meals twice a week to those receiving them five times a week.

“In 2011, the total cost was £697,000. The unit cost is, on average, £4·68. The average client contribution is around £2·24, and I recognise that that is not in keeping with the departmental guidance.

“I will come to that later in the presentation. The average trust subsidy is £2·44. A meal provided by statutory sector providers, which is the education side, costs around £3·55. That does not include the transport costs.

Later, referring to the £1.50 limit recommended by DHSSPS, Mr Corry Finn said: “We carried out a review of our meals in 2011, and we recognise some of the things that have already been mentioned by other trusts, including the departmental circular. As I said, some of that was historical, and our plan is to bring an alignment of client charges in 2012.”