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The voice of Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector

Published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.

Service which supports vulnerable will close next week

This news post is almost 6 years old
 

A campaign to save Food Train North Ayrshire has failed - with deliveries to cease at the end of the month

A service for the isolated and elderly will make its final deliveries next week.

Food Train North Ayrshire will halt at the end of the month after its funding was pulled.

A campaign to save the service – which provides deliveries of shopping to 172 people around the area – was backed by thousands of people, however Food Train confirmed this week that it had been unable to secure alternative funding.

Around 40 volunteers and two employees help deliver the essential items, with many OAPs saying the service helps them to eat better, reduces the prevalence of malnutrition, helps relieve loneliness and lowers the risk of falls.

However the charity was informed just before the festive period that its £75,000 funding from the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership’s Integration Joint Board was being ended.

Food Train chief executive Michelle Carruthers MBE said that the decision came as a shock, and further discussions with the partnership had failed.

“Right up until early December it had all been very positive and we were having talks about expanding into Cumbrae and Annan, as well as the mainland where our work had been focused on,” she said.

“We were talking about the potential for introducing our befriending, Meal Makers and outreach services – all of which could have been brought in for no extra cost. So it was a shock when we heard they were withdrawing.”

The service has helped to reduce isolation amongst those it supported – with many of Food Train’s customers aged over 85 and some living in rural areas.

One of the alternatives suggested by health bosses is that people who used the services could receive supermarket deliveries of food, however Carruthers said that Food Train offers far more to those it helps.

“The crucial thing for us is that we will contact a person if they do not make their regular delivery, supermarkets will not do that,” she said.

“Most of the people we worked with do not have a computer, we often talk them through their orders and it can take up to an hour. We make sure that they are getting the food that they need, that they are eating it, that what they are ordering is healthy and our volunteers are there to talk to them.”

Carruthers added that customers and staff were devastated at the closure of the service, and wanted to say thank you to the more than 4,500 people who had backed a campaign to save it.

A spokesman for North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership said: “We are deeply saddened that it has not been possible to continue to fund some care projects and we fully understand Food Train’s disappointment with the decision.

“Due to the severe financial constraints within health and social, the Integrated Care Fund Review Group – made up of senior representatives from North Ayrshire Council, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, Third Sector and Independent Sectors – agreed that only projects which were considered financially sustainable should receive support going forward.”