Concerns a significant number of people across the Humber region could be suffering from malnutrition
It's been revealed the care board for the area spends almost a fifth of its budget on addressing the issue
It's been revealed almost a fifth of care board spending is going on supporting people with malnutrition across the Humber region.
It's as extra GP appointments are also needed to deal with it. An estimated 134,506 appointments across the Humber and North Yorkshire care board per month were recorded.
The costs are said to be putting a major strain on the NHS.
We spoke to Mark Westaby
Had checks been done we may have been able to avoid this
His elderly mum from Scunthorpe suffers from dementia and had a fall after her weight loss wasn't picked up due to a poor diet.
She's now in a care home but he says he wants more regular checks on the vulnerable for possible malnutrition.
"My mother has been through all this and had this (checks) been done we may have been able to avoid this - or at least it might not have been so traumatic."
"Over recent years what we discovered was she simply wasn't eating enough."
She was effectively living on just bread and jam
"We found out she was living effectively on bread and jam - because it was easy."
"Obviously she could cope with that but it wasn't giving her the nutrition she needed."
"It was frustrating too because because my sister and I realised she wasn't eating the meals that we were providing but at the same time when someone is fiercely independent it's difficult to actually get them to do things particularly with the dementia."
"I can never remember and I don't think my sister can ever remember when anyone in the health service said to us we need to check her nutrition - we need to check if she's getting what she needs from a nutritional perspective."