Age Concern York has slammed supermarket bosses for turning down a proposal to make shopping easier for elderly people who have just left hospital.

The organisation approached Tesco asking for the supermarket's internet delivery service to be made more accessible to the elderly, but the firm refused.

Sally Hutchinson, of Age Concern York, said: "It costs £5 per shopping delivery, regardless of the value of the shopping and what we were suggesting was that if we put people's shopping together and paid one £5 we could get it delivered to a central point and we could distribute it from there.

"We weren't coming up with any firm proposals, we were saying, 'can we look at this together'."

"We had a very successful meeting with the store at Askham Bar and they said they would love to help with a community initiative like this, but then the head office came back and said they were thinking of other ways of helping in the community with regards to shopping and that they just couldn't go ahead with this one.

"All we wanted to do was a hospital after-care scheme for around 20 people so they can use the internet even if they don't have the technology to do it. Tesco say they believe in looking after the community but they don't want to do something really very small which would just help a few older people who need temporary help while they're trying to get back on their feet after getting out of hospital."

But a Tesco spokesman said today that, while Age Concern had come up with a good idea in York, it had proved impossible for the company to say yes.

Serious trading standards and health and safety issues would have been raised if food had been delivered to one central depot before being passed on to elderly people.

He said Tesco took responsibility for delivering food at three temperatures, frozen, chilled and ambient, and also before its "best before" dates."

Age Concern would have opened itself up to a number of risks if it had taken on those responsibilities. He said that an alternative suggestion - that food should be delivered free to such people in York - could have raised issues about excluding people in a similar situation elsewhere.

Updated: 11:35 Wednesday, April 18, 2001