A DISGUSTED Evesham woman has branded the meals on wheels service used by her 90-year-old mother as ‘diabolical’ and claimed she ‘wouldn’t feed those meals’ to her dog.
The concerned daughter, who doesn’t wish to be named, has spoken to the Observer to urge other residents to check on the standard of their relative’s meals on wheels service after discovering the unappealing meals Apetito were providing her mother with.
Since last year, her 90-year-old mother, who has dementia, has a meal delivered to her once a day, seven days a week by the hot meal delivery service.
However, because of her mother’s dementia, she prefers to be left alone to eat and it was only last week when the concerned daughter saw the meals being delivered to her mother.
“My mother is so independent that she doesn’t like people seeing her eat,” she said.
“She doesn’t like me going into her fridge because she thinks I’m checking up on her, so it’s very difficult caring for her.
“Mum has reached the stage now where she can’t really use the cooker safely and if I bought frozen food for her she wouldn’t defrost it, she’d just eat a piece of cake.
“Last Wednesday my youngest daughter went in and she sent me a photo of her meal and she said ‘mum this is what Nan is supposed to eat for her dinner today, she can’t eat this.’ I looked at it and I just couldn’t believe it.
“The following day I took her to the hairdressers so I went over early to catch the meal at the same time.
“I asked the driver if I could open it in front of him because yesterday’s meal was diabolical. I opened it and it was the braised steak – I wouldn’t even feed my dog it.
Following her discovery she has now cancelled the service and the Golden Cross in Harvington has stepped into provide daily hot meals for her mother.
The concerned daughter is now calling on other residents to check the quality of the meals and wheels service their elderly relatives maybe receiving.
“If it’s happening to my mum, I’m sure she’s not a one off,” she added.
“It must be happening to other people as well.
“People like my mum wouldn’t complain. I’m sure there’s a lot of people sat there who are eating this rubbish and not complaining about it.
“Check if you can and find out if the same thing is happening with your relatives.”
In response an Apetito spokesperson said: “We’re disappointed to see one of our customers receive a service not up to the high expectation we set ourselves.
”We were made aware of this by the customer and are acting internally to ensure others don’t experience the same issue.
“We pride ourselves on delivering the best meals on wheels service possible. Therefore when informed by a customer that this is not up to expectation, we do all we can to rectify.
“Once again we apologise to the customer for the disappointment caused.”
