Home-cooked meals to return in council-run elderly care homes

The policy of obtaining the main meal of the day for residents of the York Council homes from the catering department of York Hospital was adopted 10 years ago.

But re-heating the two-course lunches produced mixed results, resulting in much of the food being thrown away. There was also concern about how much nutrition the elderly people were obtaining from the menus.

Now a study involving three of the homes has revealed that freshly preparing the meals in the kitchens of the homes would not only be healthier but save money for hard-pressed taxpayers.

The homes still have working kitchens because all the rest of the meals, breakfast, tea and supper, are prepared and cooked on site, along with the baking of cakes and pastries .

For a three-month pilot study one home, Grove House, returned to providing all home-cooked meals. Willow House maintained the current method of hospital main meals seven days a week, while Oakhaven had a mix of the two.

The assistant director of service delivery, Graham Terry, said: "The views of the managers were that home-cooked food gave better value for money, higher nutritional values and gave the opportunity to provide a varied and well balanced diet to residents.

"They felt a key factor both emotionally and socially in residential care settings is meal times 'something to look forward to'."

There were also a number of problems with the existing system, leading to increased waste and costs.

"Customers have to choose their meals in advance which does not provide flexibility for them to change their minds as to what they would like to eat on the day," he added.

"Alternative choices are offered by the home. In some instances this can result in the cook catering for a larger number of meals in addition to the meals that are delivered and paid for from the NHS.

"Cook-chill meals cannot be stored or re-frozen so they have to be disposed of, which incurs waste.

"The quality and presentation of the food once reheated is very unpredictable, which often leads to further waste."

His report underlines that the proposal to stop using chilled meals and employ cooks instead is affordable within the existing budgets for the homes.

The additional staff required will cost 68,000 and it is estimated that the purchase of food will cost 277,000, making a total cost of 345,000, compared with the current catering budget of 364,000.

Another problem with buying in the dishes was they did not always reflect on seasonal products or variations in weather such as salads on summer days.

There was also little flexibility for family and visitors to stay and have a meal with their relative which could provide additional revenue for each of the homes by asking dining visitors to pay a nominal charge.

If all food is freshly cooked in the establishment, residents will have greater choice in what they eat.

They will have the option to change their minds as amounts of certain home cooked meals can be adjusted on the day of preparation.

Many residents were becoming more frail and often needed additional supplements to ensure they have a balanced and nutritionally healthy diet.

"This will be more manageable if all food is prepared in the home by the cook, who will have knowledge of the individual residents needs and make the monitoring of dietary intake easier to achieve," added Mr Terry.