We mustn’t garnish the truth about hospital food

HOSPITAL food has a bad reputation and having spent a lot of time, over the years, filming in a wide range of hospitals, I think it’s a reputation that is well deserved.

Yet people who are ill need nutritious food to speed their recoveries — it is ludicrous that this is still not a priority.

So I was delighted to read a review that chef Prue Leith and others have published detailed steps to improve the standard of meals in NHS hospitals. Among the changes I would love to see implemented are: MAKE sure everyone at the hospital — from the chief executive to the patients — gets offered the same meals. A survey last year found more than half of staff wouldn’t eat the food served to patients. If those in charge of catering budgets ate the same meals as patients they might ensure everyone gets high-quality food.

FOOD should be cooked fresh, rather than frozen. A survey found nearly twothirds of hospitals don’t cook fresh food; the Daily Mail revealed last year that some patients are being served meals that were cooked and frozen up to a year earlier.

TAKE care with presentation — what food looks like makes a big difference. A recent survey found 17 per cent of hospital food is still served in plastic trays. Why not use proper knives, forks and crockery? A study by the University of Oxford in 2015 found that small tweaks to improve the presentation of even the most basic food — such as a garden salad or steak and chips — make it a lot more palatable.

This recent review is, of course, not the first attempt to improve hospital food. There was a report back in August 2014 claiming that hospital patients in England would be getting a higher standard of food. Six years later and the food being served is still pretty dire. I just hope the promise of change actually comes through this time.