The National Association of Care Catering (NACC) is calling for urgent governmental intervention in the wake of a report that suggests the Meals on Wheels services is on the brink of collapse, with only 29% still in operation across the UK, and fewer than 18% in England.

Meals on Wheels feeds vulnerable people allowing them to live independently in the community reducing the risk of malnutrition, loneliness, or social isolation by providing at least one nutritious hot meal every day

Meals on Wheels is not statutory for local authorities to provide, so councils can remove the service to save money.

As part of this year’s Meals on Wheels Week, 30 October to 3 November, the NACC is calling on Government to:

• Ensure councils receive urgent funding to directly support the continuation of existing meals on wheels services including direct funding to reinstate Meals on Wheels services lost in recent years.

• Consider Meals on Wheels a statutory responsibility to safeguard its future.

• Consider other additional alternative support such as VAT relief for service providers and help with food and fuel inflation which has impacted on the financial viability of the service.

The NACC, Age UK and Care England together have written to MPs to raise their concerns.

NACC’s chair Neel Radia said: “With councils facing a funding gap of some £7 billion in adult social care, cutting a service which is relatively low cost in offering multiple lines of support to vulnerable adults is frankly a cheap cut. The benefits of the service far outweigh the costs. Removing a preventative service for the most vulnerable in our communities is short-sighted. We need the government to step up to the plate and deliver the right funding for councils so that they do not face a choice of long-term prevention services for older people facing the axe, whilst at the same time knowing that this approach will push up costs to the public purse forcing more vulnerable people into costly care in either residential or hospital settings.

“With the NHS in long-term crisis it is obtuse to add to the public health burden by cutting an ill-health prevention and support service, that is of itself a cost-effective way of supporting older people. The answer is to give councils the direct funding to support meals on wheels and ensure the service has a long-term future. It is our assertion that there is a direct link between the decline in public spending on the service and the increase in community-based malnutrition, and that a boost to spending could significantly reduce financial burdens to health and social care systems.

“We are therefore asking that the government provides ministerial guidance to local councils to safeguard the provision of Meals on Wheels and lunch clubs in the UK, as currently there is no mandatory requirement for a local authority to provide a service at all. Allied to this funding must be directed and ringfenced to support delivery of these essential services.”