WE WILL DELIVER BETTER FOOD FOR PATIENTS
SNP pledges a radical shake-up of hospital catering after hard-hitting Mail campaign
HOSPITAL meals face a radical shake-up in a dramatic intervention by the Scottish Government to drive up food quality standards. Today, ministers will announce a package of measures to improve NHS nutrition and catering – including a consultation on a groundbreaking proposal to make the new criteria legally binding. This would make Scotland the first country in the UK to introduce legislation forcing health boards to provide better meals.
Ministers are also examining plans for a tougher inspection regime for
meals, amid concern that health boards are currently allowed to ‘self-report’ on food quality.
The Mail has been campaigning for improvements to often woeful hospital food produced for as little as 89p per meal.
A spokesman for First Minister Alex Salmond said: ‘We’ve already done a lot to improve standards but there’s always more that can be done – and the Scottish Daily Mail’s campaign has highlighted the need to make sure everyone treated in
‘We have made great progress’
Scotland’s hospitals gets the nutritious, appetising meals they should.’
Last night, Health Secretary Alex Neil said: ‘We have made great progress but I recognise that there is always more that can be done to drive up standards.’
The measures to be announced today are:
Improved nutrition and catering standards to be introduced in the New Year, supported by increased inspections of hospital meals;
A consultation to determine whether nutritional standards in hospitals should be placed on a statutory footing;
A further £300,000 to help health boards improve nutritional care.
Scotland was the first country in the UK to introduce national standards for food, fluid and nutrition in hospitals.
Si nce 2 0 0 8 , more t han £1.75million has been invested to improve standards, includi ng supporting nutritional c hampions, malnutrition screening of all patients on admission to hospital, and the introduction of protected meal times to ensure patients get the help they need to eat.
Mr Neil said: ‘Scotland has led the way in the UK. We already have rigorous standards in place and cl ear guidance about how these standards can be met. We have been working on these new guidelines for some time as part of an ongoing review of nutritional standards.’
Details of the new guidelines will be published in January.
The Mail’s Better Meals For Patients campaign has brought Labour, Tory and Lib Dem MSPs together to sign a parlia- mentary motion calling for random i nspections and a Government-led review.
Scotland’s NHS budget for food and drink declined from £ 32.6million i n 2011- 12 to £29.7million last year.
Health boards are spending more than £15,000 a week on frozen ready-meals in hospitals, with some of these being sourced from suppliers hundreds of miles away.
A PLATE with a pathetic handful of pasta smothered in a day-glo yellow sauce. A baked potato with no accompaniment whatsoever. Meat so grey and dry it is not possible to tell which animal it originally came from. The Mail’s Better Meals For Patients campaign was made so hard-hitting by the pictures we ran of some frankly dreadful food served to patients in Scottish hospitals.
Readers inundated us with snaps of grim meals served to them or relatives and many told us how doctors insisted they eat certain foods – liquid diets, for instance – only to find such choice was beyond the capabilities of the hospitals.
To be fair, some readers did say some NHS food was very good, but it was apparent that very many patients in very many wards were being given woefully substandard fare. Our campaign quickly gathered crossparty support, for although hospitals are required to meet minimum standards on nutrition, the inspection regime did not extend to any evaluation of how appetising the meals provided for sick and recuperating Scots really were. Who could argue that was an acceptable situation in 21st century Scotland? Now comes the very welcome news that Health Secretary Alex Neil is to deliver a radical shake-up of hospital catering.
His pledge, which we report today, is to improve nutrition and catering standards. That process will begin in the New Year. Crucially, i t will be underpinned by increased inspections of meals. During our campaign, we reported how pivotal funding is to hospital catering, so Mr Neil’s announcement of a further £300,000 invested to help health boards improve nutritional care is vital.
Further, the SNP is to consult to determine whether nutritional standards in hospitals should be placed on a statutory footing.
That underscores how seriously the issue is being taken: rather than aiming for minimum standards, the Government is preparing the ground for Scotland to set a benchmark for best-practice in hospitals. Resources for the NHS are finite and no one is arguing that the meals it provides for patients should be of Cordon Bleu standard.
But if this reimagining of catering can at least ensure patients with special dietary requirements can be accommodated; if it can prevent plates with blobs of unidentifiable pap being sent to wards, then it will have been a major success