Meals on wheels services could help reduce the national deficit

We are all aware of the impending spending review for local government in reducing the national deficit. Now more than ever is the time to realise how a meals on wheels service can help reduce the national deficit in associated areas like the NHS and Care Homes.

BAPEN (British Association of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition) has highlighted that the cost of malnutrition has increased from £3.4 to £7.3 billion for the over 65s between 2003 and 2008 – a staggering 114% increase. At the same time meals on wheels numbers have dropped from 34 to 22 million, due mainly to the abolition of using the Low and Moderate referral criteria. The knock-on effect is that the elderly are not receiving intervention early enough and we are dealing with the outcomes rather than prevention.

Savings could be made by reinstating the Low and Moderate referral criteria and delaying people entering hospital. If reduced by only 10%, this could save £73 million per year. 

Coupled with this, there is also going to be a need for more care homes due to the growing population. However, people are being referred to care homes too early and the cost is spiralling. By keeping people in their own home with the right level of support, local authorities could save circa £30,000 per service user per year.

This doesn’t include the extra costs of building more care homes to cope with the current rate of increase. There is already in the region of 497,000 beds in the UK, if we could delay people entering care homes by 10% there could be a saving of £1.5 billion per year. 

We are all aware of the social values the meals on wheels service brings but this ‘Cinderella’ service could save the country £2.23 billion per year.

> Find out more about apetito Community Meals services