Page 25unintended consequence of a
hospital or trust not receiving a
fixed amount of money for every
patient fed is that it would much
rather not feed anyone.
If, as in schools, they were
compensated for every meal
served, they would put more
effort into doing it well.
The scale of the problem is
immense, but there is no
doubt it can be fixed.
If the North Bristol NHS
Trust — the only one
serving meals with the
prestigious Silver ‘Food
For Life’ Catering Mark
accreditation from the
Soil Association — and
The Robert Jones And
Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic
Hospital in Shropshire,
recently voted by patients
as producing the best
hospital food in the
country, can cook fresh
food on site and please
their patients, obviously
others could.
I am not suggesting that
one size fits all, and different
approaches may be necessary, but
we should start with fresh food,
prepared with skill and care.
My hope is that this review will
work with conviction and energy
to propose a really good plan that
the NHS sees the point of and for
which the Government will find
the money.
As yet, we have little idea how
much money that will be. Nor
how it will be paid.
It has been suggested that
patients who can afford it should
pay some contribution — say, for
the cost of ingredients, for which
they would be paying if they were
at home.
Perhaps — but I would argue
we’d need the food to be delicious
before we proposed that.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson
recently confirmed a £1.8 billion
NHS cash injection to improve
patient care.
Let’s hope hospital food gets a
really big chunk of that. After all,
it’s in the interest of the Govern-
ment to get it right.
First of all, it will cheer up
patients and make them happier
with the beloved NHS.
Second, patients will recover
faster and vacate those much-
needed beds sooner if they are
eating well.
And it will remove what is
currently a national disgrace:
horrible food in hospital.life
Picture: ALAMY / POSED BY MODELSHungry? You’re
in luck. Another
patient’s just died
- you can have
their supper
Shockingly, that’s just one of the true stories
told to PRUE LEITH since she was tasked by Boris
to tackle the horrors of hospital food. Here, she
tells how she CAN cure a national disgrace
Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019wrapped, items, real cooks are
a thing of the past in many
hospitals, and new ones will need
to be recruited and trained.
We must also acknowledge the
fact that, although dietitians,
present in every hospital, are
experts in their field, cooking and
flavour are not part of their remit.
As Dr Martin Scurr argued on
Tuesday in this paper, dietitians
need to work with hospitalkitchens in order to provide
nutritional support matched to
patients’ needs.
One of the stark realities of
the current crisis is that food is
considered a low priority. Hospitaladministrators see feeding the
patient as a regrettable expense,
while the morale of the caterers,
doing their best in an impossible
situation, is at rock bottom.
I personally believe that theHard to digest:
A nurse serves
a meal to a
patient and
(far left) Prue
Leith with
Boris Johnson