Food Train
Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-08202, in the name of Elaine Murray, on all aboard the Food Train. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the award of a £59,474 Investing in Communities: Supporting 21st Century Life grant to Food Train Limited in Dumfries and Galloway; congratulates Food Train on its progress from its beginnings in Dumfries in 1995 as a service to assist older people with their weekly grocery shopping to a multi-award-winning charity supporting older people in six local authority areas in Scotland, with the intention of expanding further; notes that Food Train now also offers home support and befriending services, and understands that this award will support the continuation of Food Train Friends in Annandale and Eskdale and its expansion into other parts of Dumfries and Galloway, supporting at least 160 vulnerable people aged 65 and older to reduce social isolation and support their independence.
First, let me correct the typo that seems to have made its way into the motion. The sum of money that was awarded to Food Train by the Big Lottery Fund’s investing in communities supporting 21st century life grant was actually £590,474 over five years, not £59,474 as shown in the Business Bulletin, so we have 10 times as much to celebrate this afternoon.
I had hoped to be able to welcome Scott McGill, who is the befriending project manager, Dr Rob Wells, who is the chair, and Sue Greig, who is a volunteer, to the gallery but I suspect that they have been prevented from coming by this morning’s severe weather. Nevertheless, I am delighted to bring this debate to Parliament and to celebrate the continued success of a social enterprise that began its existence in Dumfries and Galloway in 1995. It now provides services to older people in six local authority areas in Scotland, and it has ambitions to expand further.
Food Train started out 18 years ago after the Dumfries elderly forum conducted a survey of older people in the town to ask what services would make a real difference to their lives. Many respondents stated that they struggled with their weekly grocery shopping, so Food Train was born. It was chaired by the redoubtable Miss Jean Mundell, who left no stone unturned or elected representative at any level unlobbied in her determination to get her beloved project firmly established.
Jean Mundell’s efforts first focused on Dumfries and Galloway Council, but with the advent of the Scottish Parliament, she soon had Susan Deacon and then Malcolm Chisholm in her sights as they were holders of the office of Minister for Health and Community Care. That effort paid off in 2002, with a four-year grant from the Scottish Executive better neighbourhood fund, which enabled staff to be recruited to develop the service. Ever since, Food Train has been well supported by successive Scottish Administrations. Indeed, support from the current Scottish Government has enabled the service to be rolled out to other parts of Scotland.
Jean Mundell was awarded the MBE for her services to the community in 2006. She received the award from the Lord Lieutenant in her hospice bed the day before she died at the age of 80. She is in company with Kirkpatrick Macmillan, the inventor of the bicycle, and JM Barrie, the inventor of Peter Pan, as one of three people to be selected by community vote to be commemorated by a portrait bench in Dumfries. If anyone wants to see that, it is on the Heathhall to Cargenbridge section of the cycle way. It is not far from my house, so I am often able to go and see her when I walk my dogs.
When I told Food Train’s chief executive, Michelle McCrindle, that we were holding this debate today, her response was that, if she had still been alive, Jean would have been chuffed to bits to hear Food Train being debated in Parliament. I think that she would have been even more chuffed at the success of Food Train today. It has been in receipt of a plethora of awards, including the Queen’s jubilee award for voluntary service, and it now operates in West Lothian, Stirling, Dundee, Renfrewshire and Glasgow, as well as in Dumfries and Galloway. Every month, more than 500 volunteers give more than 75,000 hours of their time to support 1,250 older people with 3,000 grocery deliveries, supported by 20 grocery store partners.
Food Train does not only deliver groceries. Food Train extra household support also assists people in Dumfries and Galloway, and now in West Lothian, with household tasks that they find difficult, such as changing lightbulbs, defrosting the fridge or freezer, or other small tasks that can be made difficult by decreased mobility or joint problems.
In Dumfries and Galloway, Food Train friends offers a befriending service to combat loneliness with phone calls, home visits, trips out, events and clubs. Currently, 100 people receive the service, with volunteers giving 250 hours of their time each month. Esther Rantzen might have launched the Silver Line the other week to great fanfare, but Food Train was well ahead of her. The recent Big Lottery Fund award will support and expand that service throughout our region to start with.
It would be easy for me to talk for seven minutes about how wonderful Food Train is and how wonderful all the volunteers are. However, it is important to reflect on why its services are so necessary, and Food Train has asked me to speak about some of its concerns. The International Longevity Centre—UK report earlier this year estimated that more than 10 per cent of older people are malnourished. That equates to about 90,000 malnourished older people in Scotland. We aspire to our population leading healthier lives for longer, but unless older people are eating properly that cannot be possible for them.
The third sector is particularly well placed to provide services such as those that are provided by Food Train. Co-production of services is a fashionable concept nowadays but Food Train was doing that way back in 1995.
Sadly, loneliness is also a major factor in reducing the quality of life for many older people as partners and friends die and families live too far away for regular visits. Reduced mobility creates difficulties in getting out of the house and having to give up driving isolates people, particularly those who live in rural communities where there may be little or no accessible public transport. Projects such as Food Train friends can make a real contribution, bringing friendship and fun back into people’s lives. The improvement in quality of life is of course the most important factor, but when we think about preventative spend, investment in such services can save the statutory public sector a lot of money by sustaining independent living and physical and mental health.
Food Train is proud of the services that it provides, but it remains concerned that the grocery service is still available in only six local authority areas, its household service in two areas and its befriending service still only in Dumfries and Galloway. As Michelle McCrindle said in her email to me, the frailties of ageing do not discriminate, whether someone lives in Portpatrick or Portree. Food Train continues to advocate for a single standard of social care for older people and it also provides a wonderful example of how the third sector can provide the services that make all the difference.
It is only about a year ago that my colleague Claudia Beamish, who is here beside me, hosted a reception in Parliament for Food Train, which was attended by many MSPs—more than are here in the chamber today, I think. We were all very impressed to learn not only about what Food Train had achieved in Dumfries and Galloway—those of us who represent the area were aware of that—but about its ambitions to do the same for the whole of Scotland. I look forward to Food Train’s continuing success and say well done to Food Train on getting the award. I look forward to it receiving further awards and being able to expand its services throughout Scotland to provide that support to our older communities.
14:22
I thank Elaine Murray for lodging the motion. It is very apposite at this time of year in particular to have the chance to discuss something such as Food Train.
As Elaine described, Food Train was launched in Dumfries in 1995 but it has been a vital service to many people across the country since that launch. I congratulate Dumfries and Galloway Food Train on receiving that fantastic investment of more than £0.5 million. It was well deserved because Food Train has proven itself on the ground from its own customer satisfaction surveys, given the feedback from the people whom it is helping.
Elaine mentioned that there is a branch of Food Train within my constituency area, Stirling, and the residents of Stirling are very lucky to have it. Food Train in Stirling was launched two years ago under the leadership of—I will use one of Elaine’s words—the redoubtable Fran Thow. Fran works with volunteers from across the Stirling area to provide a shopping service for people over 65 years of age who cannot manage, as we might imagine, to do their own shopping.
I know that Food Train wants to expand into other areas, but it already makes 27,000 grocery deliveries across the six areas that Elaine mentioned, which says something about the existing scale of the grocery service and deliveries operation that the volunteers have taken on. That is why Food Train managed to get hold of that £500,000 award, which is so important.
Within the Stirling area there are about 150 customers who use this fabulous service, with 55 local volunteers providing assistance. Over the past two years, the volunteers across the constituency have donated more than 12,000 hours of their time to help those in need of support.
Not only do the volunteers offer an extremely valuable service, providing groceries and home deliveries, but they have come to the aid of several people who have been found in distress, and of whom my constituency office is aware, helping them to gain access to the support services that they need in a wider sense.
I am also aware of the relationships that Food Train has built locally with many other third sector organisations in Stirling. It has been working together very effectively in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service, Start-Up Stirling—which is also involved with one of the food banks in the Stirling area—and Stirling carers centre. It also supports work experience projects for Jobcentre Plus, Scope, youth services and organisations such as the Richmond Fellowship, creating opportunities for people to become involved in meaningful activities and help others in their community.
In Food Train’s annual customer survey, 98 per cent of the service’s users voted Food Train excellent or good. I wonder how many public services would get that level of recognition of the effort that they are putting into helping people. I am not in any way decrying public services and what they do, but obviously something exemplary is going on here. Sixty per cent of people said that they felt more able to stay in their own home because of the service on offer. That relates to Elaine Murray’s point about the importance of early intervention in ensuring that people can stay in their home with their family support network around them.
Over the past two years, Food Train has had a huge impact on the life of some of my constituents. It has allowed them to live independently in their own homes, safe in the knowledge that they will have their shopping delivered to them every week. Members should not just take my word for it. Service users have made the following glowing comments about Food Train in my area:
“All my shoppers are cheery and helpful”;
“They make my day, can chat and laugh”;
“Being a Type l diabetic, I find your service quite invaluable. I now feel confident that I can access foods for my diet”;
“It makes our lives less stressful”;
“An excellent service, fulfilling a great need, especially in rural areas”;
“Food Train makes it possible for me to live independent of the help of friends for shopping”;
and
“I would find life very difficult without Food Train”.
The one l like best is, “They are magic.”
That says it all about the sort of organisation that we are talking about. To the staff and volunteers at Food Train in Stirling and throughout Scotland, I say “You have been doing a wonderful job—keep it up. We value the service you provide. Certainly the people who get your service very much value what you do.”
I was quite moved last week when I watched the launch of the Silver Line by Esther Rantzen. I was thinking about this debate and it made me realise just how important such services are when it comes to issues of isolation and loneliness among older people. I guess that I am getting closer to that myself now, so I am getting a bit selfish and ensuring that everything is in place before I reach that stage.
Well done to everyone involved in Food Train—it is a fantastic organisation—and to Elaine Murray for bringing the debate to the chamber.
I remind members that it is important to use full names, not only with respect to chamber protocol but because it is necessary for the Official Report. It also helps the public who are watching our proceedings. I would be grateful if members could bear that in mind.
14:28
I thank Elaine Murray for securing the debate. I first met Food Train volunteers and staff in the Scottish Parliament at a lunch time event. When I spoke to volunteers from Stirling, which is in my region, as well as older people who use the service, they were all so positive about their experience and said how much they valued it.
It is remarkable that such a simple service—one that arose from the need for older people with reduced mobility to get their food shopping done regularly and freshly—can deliver so many benefits. The health benefits of staying at home for as long as possible and retaining a degree of independence are clear. I was interested to read that all service users are company members with a vested interest and democratic say in shaping the charity and its objectives. The level of involvement in the charity gives the people who use the service more of an investment in it and in its future.
The regular interaction and friendship given by the volunteers is invaluable. We know about the 15-minute care visit—statutory services are under such pressure. Third sector organisations such as Food Train can help to relieve some of that pressure, as well as provide a preventative service offering care and support.
There was a recent report about older people and loneliness. Age UK says that half of all people aged 75 and over live alone, and one in 10 people aged 65 or over say that they always or often feel lonely. That is more than a million people. We are familiar with some of the reasons for that. Families live further away from each other. People experience bereavement. Neighbours are around less. However, that is often a way to criticise modern society. That is not good enough. Not all communities or families are the same, and loneliness touches many people. I do not think that societal change is enough of an explanation, and anyway, what is important is how we respond to those circumstances. Society has changed and will always change, but with new models of care and an understanding of the huge variations in older people’s needs, we can improve expectations and opportunities.
We must be alert to malnutrition among older people. For people who have previously fed a family, perhaps cooking for one or two people can often feel like more bother than it is worth. As Elaine Murray said, recent research from the International Longevity Centre—UK found that around 10 per cent of people over the age of 65 suffer from malnutrition and dehydration. That equates to around 89,000 older people in Scotland. The research found that malnourished people saw their general practitioner twice as often, had three times the number of hospital admissions, and stayed in hospital for three days longer than those who are well nourished.
Older people who have a relationship with organisations such as Food Train, which values food and its importance, can help to address that issue. With six Food Trains across Scotland, its growth is a testament to the effectiveness and quality of the service.
Securing funding is always vital for voluntary sector provision, of course. The motion highlights the support of over £500,000 from the Big Lottery Fund for Food Train in Dumfries and Galloway. Securing such support is a valuable part of its work and is important in enabling it to keep the service affordable.
Stirling Food Train, which started in November 2011, has an on-going programme of fundraising from bag packing to car boot sales, textile recycling and its sponsor-a-box scheme, which encourages individuals or businesses to sponsor a Food Train box for £10 a year. I congratulate all those who contribute to that scheme.
Key to the success of Food Train are the volunteers—Bruce Crawford talked about the volunteers in Stirling—who do the shopping and deliveries in a friendly and caring way. That was why I was particularly pleased to see Stirling Food Train presented with the volunteer friendly award. It was the first voluntary organisation in Stirling to be presented with that award.
Food Train is a great organisation, and I am very happy to recognise its contribution. I hope that it will continue to grow into the future.
14:32
Like other members, I warmly congratulate Elaine Murray on lodging the motion. I also thank her for pointing out the typo in it. I hope that I will be forgiven for taking the opportunity to ask those who award the grants: what was wrong with £590,475 or £590,500? I have never understood why a figure such as £590,474 would be appropriate. Perhaps that will feed through somewhere.
The amount of money is significant, and it has been given to a very worthy organisation. I commend Elaine Murray for her speech, and particularly for explaining just why, in this day and age, Food Train is still needed and is so necessary. There is a bit of an irony in the fact that, despite the huge improvements in communication via the information technology that we have all now learned to love, people are still very lonely and isolated in the world that we live in.
As has already been explained, Food Train began in Dumfries in 1995. It has gradually spread across the region—where it has six branches; three are in Elaine Murray’s constituency and three are in mine—and across the country. As we have heard, it now operates in six local authority areas.
Ever since I became an MSP, I have tried to use volunteers week as an opportunity to join the Food Train operation and experience it for myself, but I was never accepted for some reason. Therefore, I took matters into my own hands in the summer. I rang it up and said, “Can I come and join you?” and it was very willing to offer me a day out.
I found the day absolutely fascinating. I went with the Newton Stewart Food Train. We started by collecting the deliveries from the shop, visited a couple of houses in Newton Stewart, and then headed into the country. I thought that I knew my constituency quite well, and still believe that I do, but we headed up a road that I did not know even existed—by the state of it, the local authority does not know that, either. When we got to the end of the road, we headed up a track into the middle of a forest, opening two gates on the way. In the end, we came to what one might refer to as a but and ben—a little cottage—in the middle of nowhere. It was in a little glade in the middle of the forest, where lived one of life’s great characters.
The lady did not drive, and she had no real way of communicating with the outside world. She was in her own little bit of paradise in the middle of the forest. I do not know how she would have survived without the weekly visit from the Food Train.
Something that really came through to me was the very warm relationship that had grown up between the woman, who was very shy and retiring, and the Food Train volunteers. It was a very warm, friendly relationship, and I suspect that that kind of thing goes some way to explain the very high satisfaction rating that Bruce Crawford referred to in his speech. There is a clear and very friendly relationship between the service user and the service provider.
Just as the service has expanded across the region, so has the suite of services that Food Train offers, as others have said. As Elaine Murray said, Esther Rantzen got the glory for the Silver Line, but Food Train has been providing its services for ages. Something that specifically interests and impresses me is the development of Food Train friends. Here in the Scottish Parliament earlier this year, Food Train friends received a service to older people award from Age Scotland, principally for the development of the befriending options that it now offers service users. I was quite moved to read the news item on the Dumfries and Galloway Food Train website relating to that award, which states:
“our aim is to reduce loneliness and social isolation for older people across Dumfries and Galloway.”
How can one possibly aim higher than that?
14:36
I thank Elaine Murray for securing this debate on a valuable and vital voluntary service, and I welcome the opportunity to speak about a good idea from Dumfries and Galloway that is spreading across Scotland.
On one of my early visits as a newly elected MSP I spent a day volunteering with the Food Train’s Stewartry branch in Dumfries and Galloway at the invitation of two good friends who are volunteers with Food Train. My day was organised by Jif Hyde, who co-ordinates Food Train’s activities in the west of Dumfries and Galloway. I have to say that, like Alex Fergusson, I had an enlightening experience.
At 20 per cent, the proportion of retired people in the Stewartry is one of the highest for any locality in Scotland. The Stewartry also has the largest population of older people in the region, with 10 per cent over the age of 75, in comparison with a regional average of 8.5 per cent and a Scottish average of 7.1 per cent. The number of lone pensioners in the Stewartry, which is the most sparsely populated area of Dumfries and Galloway, is 25 per cent higher than the national average.
Given that people are living longer, which is a good thing, but not necessarily living well, there is a substantial demand for Food Train services in the Stewartry. In fact, the Stewartry service has slightly more customers than neighbouring Wigtownshire, with its significantly larger population.
Food Train’s 63 volunteers in the Stewartry are kept hard at work. From those who deal with orders being sent or phoned in on a Monday to the teams of shoppers who descend on the local Co-op to buy the items and the drivers who make the deliveries every week, as well as the organisers who ensure that everything runs smoothly, a huge amount of time, effort and care is put into the service.
Food Train has attracted loyalty—my friends have been volunteering with Food Train for seven years—as well as good will from other local businesses. For example, a local garage in Kirkcudbright has in the past made available the use of a four-by-four so that deliveries can continue during bad winter weather. It would be fair to say that Food Train has become part of the social landscape.
I want to reflect on why Food Train is important in a wider context. Its services are vital because they will help deliver the national health service’s 2020 vision of more people living for longer in their own homes. Making sure that people have enough good-quality food to eat is absolutely fundamental to achieving that aim.
The service also has less-measurable benefits, such as the provision of social interaction: the fact that someone is checking—unobtrusively, of course—that folk are all right and taking action if something is wrong. Many of Food Train’s more rural members in the Stewartry live in communities that used to have a shop, a post office and even a bank, most of which no longer exist. Those opportunities for social interaction are gone and with them the opportunities for folk to look out for one another, so the news that the Big Lottery is to fund the roll-out of the Food Train friends befriending project across Dumfries and Galloway is particularly welcome and, I am sure, will be of great benefit.
Food Train is an extremely valuable service, which I have been delighted to experience at first hand. It is hugely beneficial to the members who receive its services and the volunteers who provide them. It is an excellent initiative and a fantastic organisation. I join Elaine Murray and my colleagues across the chamber in wishing Food Train the very best for the future and thanking all the volunteers who deliver such a vital and valuable service.
14:40
Like others, I congratulate Elaine Murray on bringing the debate to the chamber and on highlighting Food Train’s excellent work in providing shopping, handyperson and befriending services to older people in six local authority areas across the country. I also thank her for clarifying the amount of lottery grant that it received. The figure that I had was the almost £600,000 one and my last words as I left the office were, “I am not going to argue with the member moving the motion!” I am glad that we have sorted out the matter, and think that the award is well deserved.
The motion highlights the benefits of support services to older people, particularly those who find it difficult to manage some household tasks themselves but who, with a small bit of help, can continue to live independently at home. The fact that Scotland’s older population is growing is something to celebrate, because it is proof that we are using advances in medicine and technology to live longer and healthier lives. The Government recognises that organisations such as Food Train are vital in delivering good outcomes for older people and acknowledges their contribution to our wider work on housing and support for older people
“Age, Home and Community”, the Scottish Government’s 10-year strategy for housing and support services for Scotland’s older people, was published in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in December 2011. We were delighted to include the work of Food Train as a case study in that strategy and I was happy to hear of the recent award from the National Lottery’s investing in communities fund, as that will allow the organisation to expand its services.
Between 2010 and 2015, the Big Lottery Fund will invest £300 million though its Scottish grant programmes, which equates to an investment of £1 million a week in Scotland’s communities. Food Train’s award of almost £600,000 will help to support many vulnerable older people in Dumfries and Galloway over the next five years. I was interested in the accounts of Alex Fergusson and Aileen McLeod of their days out with Food Train, which I am sure have given them great insight into its work. Hearing about their experiences has certainly given me an insight.
As we know, current population projections forecast that the number of people aged over 75 will increase by 82 per cent by 2035. Although that presents us with a significant challenge, Scotland has a track record of delivering real benefits to older people, including free personal and nursing care. We have retained those benefits in the face of current spending pressures and plan to continue them.
It is vital to have the right housing and support for older people, as that will help to enhance people’s quality of life, help them to feel safe and secure, help to reduce the number of falls and other accidents in the home and subsequent emergency hospital admissions, and allow us to make better use of our resources. Those will all produce good outcomes for elderly people.
Our national strategy for housing for older people is built around four themes, all of which are clearly shown in Food Train’s work: seeing older people as an asset, which is obviously vital to the organisation; choice; planning ahead; and prevention. Given that older people tell us that they want to remain at home for as long as possible, it is right that they, like anyone else, should have such a choice, and preventative services such as those provided by Food Train help older people to maintain their independence, retain control over their lives, stay active and contribute to their community.
A number of speakers have mentioned isolation. Although older people want to stay at home—and although we want the same for them—the one thing none of us wants is for them to feel isolated. Initiatives such as Food Train prevent that because they allow people to get involved; indeed, as others have made clear, the work done by volunteers in that respect must also be praised.
The point is that, in order to meet those needs and expectations, we need a range of different housing and support services. In 2011, we launched the reshaping care for older people programme and the accompanying £300 million change fund, which supported many services that were aimed at improving older people’s independence and wellbeing.
A central theme of our work in this area is prevention. Its importance is widely recognised, particularly in the context of public service reform. We cannot pretend that we can always prevent falls or deterioration in health. However, like the services delivered by Food Train, there are many services that can support wellbeing and reduce the likelihood of traumatic and costly hospital and care home admissions.
Good progress has been made in recent years but, as I said, we need to tackle the social isolation of people who live independently at home.
Projects such as Food Train and the new living it up project, an initiative that supports active lifestyles for Scotland’s older people, have the ability to really change the lives of our elderly population, by which I mean our parents, grandparents, neighbours and friends, and, as Bruce Crawford said, all of us, one day—some of us sooner than others, and I include myself in that.
Issues affecting older people have rightly gained national prominence in the housing and health and social care agendas. However, we need to increase that momentum. As we implement our strategies and deliver Scotland’s vision for older people, joint working across the public, independent and third sectors will be vital to the achievement of success.
Food Train is making a significant contribution to the delivery of preventative services in a number of areas across the country, and I am delighted to hear about the success of the project and the significant funding award from the Big Lottery Fund. I wish Food Train well as it continues its work.