What is the problem | Age Concern England

What is the problem?

For many older people, who are in hospital, mealtimes are not a pleasant experience. Older people, their families and their carers have been sharing with us their experiences of hospital mealtimes. The two main problems are that:

People are given inappropriate food. We know:

Vegetarians are given meat dishes
Non-pureed food is given to patients with swallowing difficulties – putting them at risk of choking

People do not get the help they need at mealtimes. We know:

Food trays are placed at the end of the bed or on tray tables that are too high, and out of the patient's reach.
No help is given with cutting up meals, and opening lids on difficult containers
No help or encouragement is given to eat and drink, and food trays are taken away untouched without any questions.

The result of this is that older people are becoming malnourished whilst in hospital, which means that they are also likely to take longer to get better and have a higher risk of gaining an infection.

We know that 6 out of 10 older people are at risk of becoming malnourished, or their situation getting worse in hospital. This must end.

Your hospital stories

Since the start of this campaign, we have been inundated with calls from older people, their families and carers sharing their bad experiences of mealtimes in hospitals.
What we want

We are calling for every ward in every hospital to implement our seven steps.