Mandatory standard urged for patient food

The Campaign for Better Hospital Food said there had been more than 21 failed initiatives to improve food in the past 20 years which had wasted £54m.

It said asking the NHS to take voluntary action was not working.

A survey of hospital meals by the group found 15 of 25 hospital meals contain more salt than a Big Mac. And two thirds of hospital staff said they would not be happy to eat the food served to patients.

Writing online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), its chairman Katharine Jenner said a voluntary approach for hospitals to improve food did not go far enough.

“Several nutritional and environmental standards apply to food served in Government departments and prisons,” she said. “So why are there no mandatory standards in English hospitals?

“I am not asking for standards that you would find only in a Michelin-starred restaurant; rather, healthier and more nutritious food with less salt and saturated fat that is sustainable, with higher animal welfare standards, and fair trade.”

Government figures suggest as many as 50,000 people a year could be dying with malnutrition in NHS hospitals in England, she said.

Food served to children in hospitals was “so unhealthy it couldn’t legally be offered in schools”, and “prison food is served fresher and warmer than hospital food”.

Its survey found three out of every four hospital meals would qualify for a red light for fat under the Food Standards Agency’s traffic light system.

Ms Jenner said Government support had not been forthcoming for the Hospital Food Bill introduced into the House of Lords, which would require the Government to convene a body of experts to draft legally-binding food standards for hospitals.

She said the Government had created a “hospital food standards panel” to review how standards can be more stringently applied to patients’ meals “without making them legally binding”.