Carers’ lack of training and the quality of food are the main complaints being voiced by elderly people and their relatives during the ongoing consultation process into minimum standards for residential homes.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly Justyne Caruana said she was in discussions with the Health Ministry to come up with a way to ensure carers were better trained and regulated.

The idea was to set up a register so that those carers who were in breach of ethics or acted unprofessionally would be struck off.

Eating spaghetti might be dangerous for some residents

She said she had also received several complaints about food and had inspected kitchens in various homes and asked for changes to be made where necessary.

Dr Caruana said the government could only impose change in State-owned homes but when the minimum standards were in place a regulatory body would be set up.

Following the public consultation, which will end next month, the standards will apply to all 37 government, Church and private homes that currently house more than 4,000 elderly people.

These standards include drawing up individual care plans for residents and offering three full meals a day with varied menus.

Over the past weeks, Dr Caruana has been visiting various homes for the elderly to hear what residents had to say.

Yesterday, she went to the Cospicua home where residents said they were very satisfied with their carers, although understaffed. They did, however, complain about the food.

One woman said the vegetables were too hard, another said that while she liked fish, she had had enough of the same recipe being reproduced all the time. Then the relative of one resident stood up and made an interesting demand: chips. “Residents here would appreciate it if, at least once in a while, they would be given some chips... it need not be often,” the woman said.

Dr Caruana smiled. This was not the first time she had heard this request as people in other homes had also asked for burgers, nuggets and spaghetti, she told them.

She noted that eating spaghetti might be dangerous for some residents and that chips and, other such food, was unhealthy.

Miriam Azzopardi, from the secretariat, said such options would be discussed with nutritionists.

“It’s not that we don’t want to give you chips,” Dr Caruana said.

“But you must understand that if we know that chips are bad for you, we cannot give them to people we are here to care for and people who fall under our responsibility,” she went on, as a number of residents nodded in understanding.

Alex Borg, from the Active Ageing Foundation, said the standards were needed urgently and called on the government to prioritise those measures that ensured the elderly were treated with dignity and that carers were provided with better training.