Supermarket chaos: Needy families STILL unable to get deliveries

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Money Mail today calls on the nation’s supermarkets to do more to ensure the elderly and vulnerable can have food delivered to their homes.

We have now heard from hundreds of anxious readers who say they have been told to stay at home but cannot get an online supermarket delivery slot.

Around 300 of your letters and emails have been pulled together into a damning dossier which we will send to all major supermarkets and a parliamentary inquiry into food supply during the pandemic.

Money Mail has also today produced a ‘shopping list’ of demands we believe will help society’s most needy secure deliveries.

Supermarkets have so far hired extra staff and are making hundreds of thousands of extra deliveries in the lockdown.

However, last week Money Mail revealed how severely ill patients and their families had been unable to have their food delivered to their homes — despite receiving letters from the NHS informing them to ‘shield’ themselves for 12 weeks.

Many were staying up into the early hours of the morning to try to secure a slot. Hundreds of elderly and vulnerable readers have flooded our inbox with similar tales.

A survey by charity Independent Age poll has this week found that 52 per cent of over-65s have struggled to get the food they needed. 

Close to 40 per cent were unable to access supermarket delivery services.

The NHS has sent letters to 1.85 million people considered extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. These letters provide instructions on how to access extra support — including supermarket deliveries — if needed.

The Government is also sharing its database of the most vulnerable people with the supermarkets. But a Money Mail investigation has found many of these are still unable to have food delivered.

Former pensions minister Baroness (Ros) Altmann says: ‘It is important that supermarkets ensure even the small delivery orders are prioritised.’

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, says: ‘We would urge supermarkets to extend priority slots to a wider group to ensure more people are able to get the support they need.’

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee of MPs has launched an inquiry into food supply in the pandemic. 

Chairman Neil Parish says: ‘It is vital that those who have been told to self-isolate can get the food they need.’

Cancer victim dies before she could book

Ann Punch was unable to get a supermarket delivery before she died of breast cancer, aged 67, this month.

The retired teacher did not receive the NHS letter that would have made her a priority and allowed her and husband John, 70, to have food delivered to them in Stonnall, Staffordshire. 

John, a chartered surveyor, tried to register Ann as vulnerable with the Government — but had no response before she died on April 5.

The couple’s daughter, a senior police officer, has now had to drop off essentials for him.

John says: ‘The fact the system doesn’t work is so frustrating.

‘Ann was clearly vulnerable and there should have been a simple way of getting her registered and signing up for priority deliveries.’

Don McKay, 73, who is having palliative chemotherapy for incurable pancreatic cancer, has had the letter from the NHS but couldn’t book a delivery with Tesco.

He and wife Christie, 70, are relying on their children to deliver supplies. Their eldest daughter regularly stays up past midnight to try to place an online order. Don says: ‘It’s so frustrating.’

Cancer sufferer Beryl Payne, 73, was told to shield herself after finishing a course of chemotherapy last month. The widow registered for support on April 3 after struggling to get a delivery. 

Yet her Ocado account says that she is not on its priority list. She says: ‘I was even second-guessing myself and wondering if I really was vulnerable when the supermarkets didn’t see me that way.’

Blind not on the vulnerable list

Deaf and blind Win Bouldin, 98, was not considered vulnerable enough to qualify for priority supermarket deliveries. 

Win, a lance corporal in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II, lives with her daughter Pauline 74, and her partner Paul, 74, in Croydon, South London.

Pauline says: ‘I really don’t want to bring the virus back to my mother. I have looked after her for so long and I couldn’t bear it if anything was to happen to her.’

Patricia Wilby is also having to send parcels of groceries to her blind son Mark McClenaghan 500 miles away because he was not considered vulnerable enough.

Mark, 48, from Glasgow, was able to travel to supermarkets before the coronavirus outbreak — but his lack of sight means he cannot practice social distancing.

Patricia, 67, says: ‘People don’t seem to understand that blind people can’t go on as normal during these circumstances.’

Meanwhile, John Mapp’s 82-year-old wife Irene has repeatedly stayed up until midnight to secure a delivery slot from Tesco to their home in Queniborough, Leicestershire. John, 81, has chronic kidney failure but hasn’t had a letter classing him as vulnerable.

Irene says: ‘I was a bit disgusted when I was told there was nothing they could do because we didn’t have a letter, it seemed harsh.’

No slots for care home either 

Care home owner Peter Sims looks after 18 residents aged 78 to 98. He relies on Tesco to bring food his wholesale provider doesn’t stock. 

But he has been unable to book any slots to the home, Hankham Lodge in Westham, East Sussex, since the lockdown began.

Instead, his staff are visiting an Asda during the carers’ hour. Peter says: ‘I’ve been contacting all the major supermarkets but all anyone has is nice words and no actions.’

Former mayor Colin Rigby, 78, and his wife Jean are relying on weekly food boxes from their local council because they cannot get a supermarket delivery slot.

Colin, once mayor of the Blackburn with Darwen borough council, was advised by the NHS to stay at home because he has had a heart bypass and suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

But despite being eligible for a priority supermarket delivery slot, the local councillors, who live in Edgworth, Lancashire, have been unable to find any availability.

Jean, 76, says: ‘I’m lucky the council provides food boxes but I feel bad as you don’t pay for them.’

Supermarkets stepping up

Andrew OpiE, from supermarket trade body the British Retail Consortium, says: ‘There is not enough capacity to deliver to every vulnerable consumer. Community solutions are needed, with people shopping on behalf of vulnerable friends and neighbours.’

Tesco last week took close to 1 million online orders — 400,000 more than six weeks ago.

The supermarket has now put Win’s daughter Pauline, Don McKay, and John Mapp on its list for priority deliveries.

A spokesman says: ‘Ensuring we support our most vulnerable customers is our priority.’

Peter’s care home has also been given priority online deliveries for items he can’t get wholesale. Wait-rose says it will speak to Beryl and Colin to see how it could help.

Sainsbury’s has more than 725,000 slots for the elderly and vulnerable. It has also introduced volunteer shopping cards so others can shop on behalf of the most vulnerable.

Waitrose says it is delivering more than 100,000 orders a week and has committed to ensuring at least 25 per cent go to vulnerable customers.

Asda has increased its weekly deliveries from 450,000 to 700,000.

A government spokesman says: ‘We understand how challenging this period is for everyone, especially the clinically vulnerable.

‘We are also looking at ways to prioritise those who are at increased risk but are not on the clinically extremely vulnerable list.’

moneymail@dailymail.co.uk

• If you have received a letter from the NHS to say you are highly vulnerable, you can register for support — including priority deliveries — online at gov.uk/coronavirus-extremely-vulnerable or call 0800 028 8327. If you have not received one and consider yourself to be vulnerable, speak to your GP.