End of the road for meals on wheels
Alternatives do not suit everyone, volunteers claim
The beloved Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) meals on wheels service so welcome in the community for several decades has ended in Rutherglen and Cambuslang.
Val de Souza, director of health and social care at South Lanarkshire health and social care partnership, said: “Royal Voluntary Service notified South Lanarkshire Council social work resources last year that they would be ceasing this service nationally, and it ended in South Lanarkshire at the end of March.
“Each person who had been in receipt of this service was individually reviewed and, if it was determined that they still required this provision on an ongoing basis, different arrangements were made to meet their needs, such as the use of a private meals on wheels service or information on lunch clubs.”
However, volunteers feel the alternative services won’t suit everyone.
One RVS member said: “It’s all very well saying that they can go to a community lunch but there are people who are housebound that can’t go out to anything in the community.
“They got a nice meal three times a week – that’s no longer happening.”
A South Lanarkshire spokesman estimated that around 40 people in the area were getting Meals on Wheels when the service ended, while the RVS put the number closer to 200.
Sam Ward, director of commissioned services for RVS, said: “Royal Voluntary Service has a long history of providing meals on wheels in communities across Britain.
“However, over the past 10 years the trend has been for many local councils to withdraw their funding of this service due to their own budget constraints. In other cases, councils have moved to a commercial provider.
“With so few services left, it became harder for the charity to sustain those remaining individual services since much of the infrastructure we used to rely on to support meals on wheels had depleted.
“That is why we took the difficult decision to not renew the contract with the council in South Lanarkshire.
“The well-being of the older people we support is our priority. We worked closely with the council to ensure everyone who received a meal was supported and offered appropriate services and are continuing to look at ways to support older people in South Lanarkshire.
“We would like to take this opportunity to thank our staff and volunteers who have worked tremendously hard to deliver the service.”
Meals on wheels started in the 1940s and expanded rapidly after the end of the Second World War but was never made a statutory entitlement. However, the deliveries by volunteers have been a lifeline to thousands of elderly and disabled people.