Hospital Food

[Guest guest]

Hopefully they will include vegan meals, which Lloyd Grossman didn't,

although he did introduce vegetarian meals.

 

Catherine - are you still here - what were your meals like?

 

Jo

 

NHS food 'needs Oliver treatment'

 

Around £500m is spent on hospital food in England annually

Hospital food, like school dinners, needs the " Jamie Oliver treatment " , say

junior doctors.

The issue is to be debated at the British Medical Association's Junior

Doctors Conference in London.

 

Junior Doctors Committee chairman Dr Simon Eccles warned poor hospital food

was slowing patients' recoveries.

 

A spokesman for the Department of Health acknowledged the need for

improvement but said progress on increasing standards was being made.

 

No difference

 

The call to bring in the celebrity chef comes five years after former

Masterchef host Loyd Grossman led an initiative to improve hospital menus.

 

But Dr Eccles told the BBC News website an anecdotal survey of 100 junior

doctors showed none reported seeing any changes in the food served in their

hospital.

 

He said: " That hasn't seemed to make any difference to the food.

 

" What doctors are served in the evenings is pretty awful - and the food the

patients get served is substantially worse.

 

 

Better food would enable patients to get better more quickly

 

Dr Simon Eccles

 

" We often see relatives bringing in food for patients. "

 

The Department of Health says £500m is spent on hospital food in England

each year, with the NHS providing 300m meals - working out at 60p per meal.

 

Dr Eccles added: " In one hospital I worked in, the evening meal would be a

sandwich, an apple and orange juice.

 

" If it was a beef sandwich, there would be two slices of beef and nothing

else; no butter and no salad. "

 

'Speedier recoveries'

 

He said patients recovering from illness or surgery needed more than the

normal daily intake of 2,000 calories.

 

But patients get an average of 1,000 calories a day, he said.

 

" Better food would enable patients to get better more quickly. "

 

He said he hoped the fact the issue was being raised at the junior doctors'

conference would mean public pressure would be brought to bear on trusts who

would then act to improve the food they provided.

 

The government promised extra funding for school meals after a high profile

campaign led by Oliver.

 

A spokesman for the chef said: " We hope that when the School Dinners

Campaign establishes itself in the rest of the country, the government will

then take a look at how the initiative has had a major impact, as this could

easily be duplicated for hospitals.

 

 

We now know that good food is important for kids' general well-being,

nutrition is also crucial to the healing process

 

Spokesman for Jamie Oliver

 

" Just as we now know that good food is important for kids' general

well-being, nutrition is also crucial to the healing process. "

 

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: " We provide around 300 million

meals each year which makes it one of the largest catering operations in the

world.

 

" Having seen improvements in the quality and availability of food, there is

a need to really tackle the issue of under-nourishment and its impact on

clinical status. "

 

Another department spokesman said: " Work needs to be done but progress is

being made to improve standards. "

 

But he said it was " wrong " to say the Grossman initiative had " failed " to

improve standards.

 

He said in 2002, just after Grossman's programme started, a report by

independent inspectors showed that just 17% of hospitals offered good food.

 

But their last set of figures showed that now 44% of hospitals offered " good

food " .

 

A spokesperson for South Downs Health NHS Trust, said patients at Brighton

General Hospital were satisfied with the quality of their food.

 

She said: " The food is handled by NHS catering, and certainly a recent

survey has shown our patients are satisfied with the state of food.

 

" We would cater for a specific diet. " 'Differences'