Do you like hospital food

4:17pm Friday 20th April 2007

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The NHS spends 500 million a year on food and catering services. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, said “let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food” so you would imagine that food in hospital would be an important part of the overall healthcare provision. I’m afraid that, in most cases, it’s not.

A report by the Nuffield Trust concluded that, not only are many people undernourished who are admitted to hospital, but that food in hospital “often makes malnutrition worse” it goes on to say that if people were given good food and nutritional support a significant number would have their hospital stay shortened by as much as five days.

The Chief Medical Officer recommended last year that health service organisations should use their food purchasing policies to promote positive economic, environmental and health impacts, i.e. by buying fresh, local and sustainably produced food.

Hardly any hospitals are doing this, most don’t even prepare their food on site, but have it delivered in and re-heated - yet it is well known that the vitamin content of many foods reduces over even short periods of time, and the vitality and palatability of meals that have travelled inevitably suffers.

Some are though, like in Cornwall, where locally sourced and organic food is being served up to patients, helping to reduce bed-days and the reliance on costly prescribed medicines. So why doesn’t everyone in hospital get the freshest, tastiest, most vital food available? And how much of that 500 million is being spent locally and supporting our communities.

The opportunity for the new independent Herefordshire Hospitals Trust is to take a leaf out of Cornwall’s book – in the long run it could save money and greatly improve health and well being.

Peter Norton