Prince Charles praises trusts for hospital food improvement
The food hospital patients are given “should help rather than hinder recovery”, the Prince of Wales said yesterday at a reception to celebrate trusts that have improved the quality of their catering.
NHS chief executives and catering managers from 14 acute and mental health trusts were praised by Prince Charles for their efforts to improve food standards at the Soil Association event, held at Clarence House in London.
The association, of which the Prince of Wales is a patron, identified the trusts as examples of “brilliant practice” in its First aid for hospital food report, published in February this year.
The report called on other trusts to follow their example, claiming that “failure to provide decent, tasty, healthy food is a result of an indefensible failure by those in charge of hospitals to understand the basic importance of good food to good health”.
Addressing representatives from the 14 trusts, the Prince of Wales said: “My only hope over the coming years is to persuade more hospitals to match your achievements.”
He said: “The food hospital patients are given should help rather than hinder recovery.”
He added: “Good quality, well prepared simple meals of great importance to improving patient satisfaction.”
Among those in attendance was Sue Morris, executive director of corporate services at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which sources virtually all of its fruit and vegetables from within Sussex.
She said sourcing food locally had proved cost effective and telling patients where the food came from helped spark interest at meal times and could aid therapy.
Mike Duckett, catering manager of the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, said the trust bought produce including free-range eggs and seasonal vegetables from farmers in south-east England.
Asked whether such initiatives could be too costly at a time of budget cuts, he insisted money was saved by cutting out middle-men. “We find it’s cheaper if you negotiate direct with the farmer,” he said.
Bedford Hospital NHS Trust director of nursing and patient services Eiri Jones, who also attended the event, said: “In-house catering is an important message. It’s all linked to patient outcomes.”
She said the trust’s restaurant had proved so popular that people came to it at weekends for their Sunday lunch.
Bedford’s chief executive, Joe Harrison, told HSJ the prince had been “very engaging” and “knew his stuff”.
Also present at the event was celebrity chef James Martin, who hosted the BBC TV series Operation Hospital Food in September. The five programmes focused on his attempts to improve the standard of food at Scarborough General Hospital in North Yorkshire.
He told HSJ the trusts highlighted by the Soil Association were “inspiring”. “These people here are doing a great job,” he said.
He added that he wanted to extend the project he had begun in Scarborough. He said: “We want to work with six hospitals next year. Even if it’s to change soup, it’s a massive difference.”
The 14 organisations present at the reception were:
- Royal Brompton Hospital
- Royal Marsden NHS Foundation TrustGloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation
- North Bristol NHS Trust
- South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
- Devon Partnership NHS Trust
- Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust
- Darlington Memorial Hospital
- Braintree Community Hospital,
- Bedford Memorial Hospital
- Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
- Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- St Andrews Healthcare Trust
- NHS Lothian
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Readers' comments (3)
Jon Hollowell | 16-Dec-2011 1:11 pm
As an employee of the NHS I can understand that trusts are looking to cut costs where possible, and hospital food could be seen as an opportunity. However, due to an underlying medical condition, I have also spent time in a number of different hospitals and experienced very stark contrasts in their quality of food. I have actually been lucky enough (if you can call spending any sort of time in hospital lucky) to spend time in two of the hospitals on this list. The quality of food produced for patients was exceptional when compared to most trusts. I am a firm believer that giving patients appetising food would, for many, reduce recovery periods and in turn reduce bed days.
I know this has long been a contentious issue, but I actually take my hat off to James Martin for highlighting the problem, and trying to produce a model for hospital catering. In 12 - 18 months time we will see if "Pat's Place" and the rest of Scarborough catering has been successful over the long term.
Well done to the 14 organisations on the list, a lot of lessons can be learnt by the majority.
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Christopher Shaw | 19-Dec-2011 1:59 pm
It's an important matter for the Prince to comment on now. Particularly in mental health where the development of social patterns and skills around eating are often undervalued.
The expedient option of delivering a wide range of cook chill meal delivered in an efficient procedural manner often fails to pick up on the importantce of stimulus and behavour to nutition and wellbeing.
That's before we get to the carbon impact of NHS food practice which will have to change.
It's also a refief to see him not banging on about architecture.
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Anonymous | 21-Dec-2011 9:03 am
all that glistens isn't necessarily gold! almost every Trust wants to support their local economy and source local food. the reality however is that budget cuts dictate that the lowest cost supplier, wherever based, wins the contract. these 14 Trusts will no doubt face the same financial challenge and one of them recently acknowledged they had moved away from organic produce to cheaper non-organic alternatives despite citing organic produce as a major improvement.
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