MEDIA RELEASE: Parliamentary friends urged to help Australians love food at any age

Leading consumer group for older Australians, COTA Australia, today thanked politicians and renowned cook Maggie Beer for helping shine the spotlight on how we can provide the best possible quality food options for older Australians living in residential aged care services.

COTA co-hosted the event for the inaugural Parliamentary Friends of Ageing and Aged Care – a new forum for advocates of older Australians to speak with MP’s about a range of issues that affect them. This event, held on Valentine’s Day, was ‘Loving Food At Any Age,’ with Ms Beer as the guest speaker.

COTA Chief Executive Ian Yates said poor quality food, and lack of real choice of food, is one of the most common areas of complaint by aged care residents or their families.

“Providing good quality food in residential aged care has some challenges – both physical and nutritional.  Menu planning needs to take into account the medical requirements of every resident, their nutritional needs, cultural background and capacity to digest food or even eat,” Mr Yates said.

“In some cases, supplements are necessary to make sure a resident receives the nutrition they need but they should never be an easy or cheap replacement for proper food.

“Aged care providers need to do more than tick the basic dietary boxes. With imagination and effort there’s no reason that people living in residential aged care should forgo the joys of great meals just because people assume they’re too old to care.

“Tonight’s inaugural Parliamentary Friends event on Valentine’s Day is about putting love into food and getting people to think beyond mere sustenance for aged care residents to providing food to which residents look forward.”

Mr Yates said increasing consumer choice in aged care would help lift the standard of food provided by those aged care providers that do not currently prioritise high quality, nutritious food that residents want to eat.

“Some providers are doing an excellent job in providing high quality food options tailored to the specific needs of every resident but others could do much, much better.

“Unfortunately, not everyone can access the providers who are doing the right thing because the current aged care funding system restricts the way aged care beds are allocated.

“The Government can improve the quality of food by giving residents the funding so they can change providers if their food isn’t up to scratch; and allow the best providers to expand in response to consumer demand. The current system actually supports the survival of poorer quality providers – its way past time this stopped, as has been repeatedly recommended.

“COTA Australia looks forward to active engagement with the MPs and Senators of the new Parliamentary Friendship Group, which provides a multi-partisan forum for discussions on matters relating to the ageing of Australia’s population and the provision of aged care services in Australia”.

Media contact: Ian Yates 0418 835 439, Jenny Stokes 0478 504 280

COTA Australia is the peak policy development, advocacy and representation organisation for older Australians, representing COTAs in every State and Territory and through them over 500,000 older Australians.

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