UK Council of Elders

Comments to three questions posed at the Older Peoples Food Summit from a member of the Help the Aged working group on nutrition (Wales)

Question 3

Keep trying to get across the message of how important it is to eat well. Friends should get together and maybe cook one meal each a week and eat together. It is hard especially with the price of living so high.

Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?
As the new consumer champion for Wales, Consumer Focus Wales will continue to push for much-needed policy change in this area (as detailed above) by working with partners in Wales and across the UK.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. The Community Health Council is pressing the need for a significant shift to enhancing community services with a strong emphasis on health and wellbeing and joint working with the local authority and voluntary organisations, with nutrition very much a part of this strategy. We also see the need to strengthen pre and post registration education and training of all health and social care professionals and the importance of public and patient engagement in ensuring future revalidation processes are fit for purpose. This clearly a wider workforce issues and starts with the implementation of an effective national curriculum, which would be inclusive of the wider workforce and population. None of these issues requires rocket science and we commend cost effective low-level interventions such as the Food Train in Dumfries, which address issues revealed by the WFA Older People's Food Charter.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3.    Continue to promote the work we have done in this area alongside the issues raised at the Summit.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3.   What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?
     
Currently involved in two research projects:

•To explore how residents’ nutritional needs are being addressed in different types of social care settings (communal versus small units)

•Migration, Nutrition and Ageing Across the Lifecourse in Bangladeshi Families: A Transnational Perspective (Ml NA)

•Seeks to explore and enhance our understanding of how eating patterns, food practices and migration affects Bangladeshi women’s nutritional status and experiences of ageing.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3.       What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

The NMC believes that older people should be empowered to speak out when any aspect of their care, including having their nutritional needs met, is less than satisfactory.  For the first time the NMC has produced a leaflet specifically for the public which sets out clearly what an older person can expect when being cared for by a nurse in any setting.   This will be readily available on the NMC website www.nmc-uk.org  or by ringing the advice line on 0207 333 9333.

Nurses will be encouraged to use the leaflet to work in partnership with older people and the people who are important to them to ensure that every older person receives the care that is their right.  Older people, or those who represent them, will be encouraged to raise their concerns so that issues can be addressed and improvements made immediately.

I trust the Summit will achieve its aims and would welcome feedback from the discussions which take place and outcomes from the event.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

The Food Standards Agency will continue its work to influence people, products and the environment as detailed above with continuing work to provide information to consumers, work with food manufacturers, retailers and caterers to improve the availability of healthier options, with local authorities to help spread good practise and stimulate interest and ideas through the Food Vision partnership with LGA, LACROS, IDeA and CIEH, and with other Government Departments to identify strategic levers to improve food availability to meet the needs of all sectors for the UK population, including older people, work with major institutions to advise on the provision of appropriate nutrition and look to influence the wider environment to support active, healthier lifestyles for UK consumers.  For more information about the policy and research activity of the Food Standards Agency see [the FSA’s strategic plan on] food.gov.uk

Due to the increase in cases of listeriosis in the over 60 age group Food Safety Week 2009 will focus on targeting that age group with relevant food hygiene messages, particularly providing advice on the safe storage and handling of food.   The 2009/10 grants to Local Authorities for food hygiene and healthy eating Initiatives will also focus on promoting good food hygiene among older people.  In addition, we are currently commissioning research to more accurately identify the “at risk” population among the over 60s and to refine our understanding of host factors implicated in increased susceptibility to infection with Listeria.

The Food Standards Agency plans to continue within our wider remit to help improve population health and wellbeing through helping older people, their relative, friends and carers choose, cook and eat safe, healthy food thereby contributing towards longer, healthier lives.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

These will be outlined in the forthcoming Quality Food for all in Wales Strategic Action Plan.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. What  are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

COPA look forward to receiving the outcomes of the summit and taking forward the nutrition in later life agenda to improve the well being of older people. COPA hope the summit will raise awareness of this topic and result in the release of funding streams to further support work in this area. COPA will actively strive to support the development of an Older People’s Charter to address nutritional needs of older people. Many COPA HUB network members are well placed to widely disseminate issues raised by the summit through their involvement with different groups and organisations for example Ageing Well and the Scottish Pensioners Forum.

*Coull, Y., Donaldson, C., Duffy, M., and Paget, A. (2008) Recipe for Life - Practice development projects: 1. Nutrition in Later Life Education Course for Home Care Staff; 2. Intergenerational Kitchen. COPA report (unpublished). RBS Centre for the Older person’s Agenda, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

*For all COPA documents and reports see COPA website at http://www.qmu.ac.uk/copa
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

1.        3. What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

We hope in the near future, to be able to expand our services to other areas of Scotland, therefore supporting a greater number of older people living at home through the provision of our weekly grocery delivery service.  More locally in Dumfries we plan to work with a new social enterprise fruit and vegetable supplier offering high quality produce at low cost to our Dumfries area branch customers.

I can only comment on supermarkets based on the relationship we have with them, which is excellent.  Across Dumfries & Galloway we have 19 different stores that donate staff time to make up our customers grocery orders – we couldn’t run our service without them! The shops/supermarkets we use are committed to supporting their own customer base through our service.

Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. What are your future plans to address issues raised by the Summit?

A new Health Social Care and Wellbeing Partnership Manager and Health Improvement Coordinator have been appointed into the HSCWB Partnership over the last three months.

Planning systems are being reviewed with a clearer emphasis on health improvement; the wider determinants of health and tackling health inequalities across population groups.

Neath Port Talbot, like many other parts of Wales has an ageing population. Therefore, older people will continue to be a priority group for active intervention for the duration of the strategy.

There will be focused work to link together the work of the SHIPs over the next two years. It is recognised that to improve general health and wellbeing - not only is there a need to improve nutrition but there is a need to help people increase physical activity; cut down or give up smoking and drinking; ensure there is access to screening and immunisation e.g. encouraging older people to have flu injections; ensure that older people feel safe and secure in their community and have opportunities to engage with other people to break isolation. All of these life circumstances and lifestyle issues have a significant impact on physical and emotional wellbeing.

There will be a Connect for Health annual conference to consider the wider determinants of health in planning.

There are plans to transform services for people who are in need of formal health and social care services with an emphasis on maximising independence. 

 

 

 

 

 

Add /Read 0 Comments... >>

3. I’m mainly there to learn. But as issues come up in the summit (and as Chair of the Telecare Services Association) I’ll be posing the question to myself regarding what assistive (+telecare and telehealth) technologies can do to help.
Add /Read 0 Comments... >>