Hospital spends just 73p a meal on patients

HOSPITALS are spending as little as 73p on patients’ meals, less than is put aside to feed prisoners, officials have admitted.

Newham University Hospital Trust in East London allows only £2.19 for breakfast, lunch and dinner, while another 16 hospital trusts spend £5 a day or less on feeding each patient.

At the top of the scale is Barts and the London NHS trust, which sets aside £15.65 a day, an average of £5.22 a meal.

Only this week, new Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promised to overhaul hospital food and send in teams of inspectors to check kitchens.

Yet the latest figures from the Department of Health show that rather than investing more in meals, several trusts are slashing costs.

‘This is an absolute insult’

Newham – the lowest spending trust – has shaved £2 off its daily meal budget and now sets aside 1p less than the Prison Service pays to feed inmates.

Moorfields Eye Hospital in London has halved its spending in the last year from £ 7.80 to £ 3.35, while Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust has cut it from £7.23 to £3.65.

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: ‘For a hospital to spend under £1 on a mealtime is an absolute insult. Access to tasty, nutritional and quality food is a vital contributor to a patient’s health and well-being.’

The Department of Health said that in the last two years overall spending on hospital food had