If Ryanair manage to only sell rainforest cetificed alliance coffee then the NHS cafe should

[Ellreejee]

Just that really. Its very embarasing that the NHS cafe is being shown up by a budget airline.

"The NHS" doesn't exist or procure in the way you think it does. As a general rule individual hospital trusts have individual contracts with local companies to run the cafes in their sites. Companies who contract for the cafes quite often run other services like catering for the wards and/or cleaning and so on. The contracts will be based around who is providing these services cheaply and (theoretically) competently. They are pretty bare bones in terms of profit as they bid super low to win the business, so if you make the contractors swallow the additional costs of the fair trade coffee they will end up skimping in other areas to make it back. Or they make coffee more expensive, patients complain and they sell less coffee, also hitting profits and again leading to cuts in other areas. Or the trust subsidises the additional cost of the coffee, and considering a large amount of trusts are deep in the red already, it's not on their list of priorities to dive in further by spending more on coffee.

So how do you see it working in practice?

I give not a shit where my coffee comes from and never will.

In fact, if you put "ethically sourced" or "rainforest certified" in a title I'm even less likely to buy it.....

What makes you think there ard coffee beans in NHS "coffee"?

Ellreejee - why are you confused?

Generally, people who frequent hospitals have rather more on their minds than whether the cup of coffee they are drinking has been purchased via FairTrade organisations.

Mostly they are visiting sick people, accessing treatment or finding out results of tests.

For most people The coffee is a warm comforting drink that gives them a distraction for a few minutes.

They aren't drinking it to score points on The Scale Of Moral Rectitude or stride through the hospital corridors declaring their commitment to Fair Trade.

I think people expect too little from the NHS.

Speaking as a nurse, no, they actually expect too much. People want the NHS to run more and more cheaply, whilst providing ever more expensive treatments to an increasingly ageing population who often need long term management of chronic health issues. People want an increasing depleted staffing team to manage a growing population whilst keeping waiting times short. And people want their stretched NHS services to offer appointments that fit conveniently around their schedules rather than work to a system of prioritising the sickest patients.

Fucking coffee isn't very high up in the list of priorities right now.

hear hear KitKat and no they really would prefer not to pay any more for it nor do lots of people care if they can't make the given appointment... just don't show up, and oh lets not forget those who don't take up the screening programmes to help diagnose before a problem arises that needs treatment. I think too many (not all) people expect far too much from a service that is on it's knees.

The nhs are accountable for spendng taxpayers money. Maybe not as accountable as they should be , but there is a big argument for saying that every spare penny should be spent on life saving drugs, equipment, etc.

The cost of an extra penny a cup would soon add up, nationwide, day after day.

KitKat your post is absolutely perfect.

Both dh and I work for the NHS. The service at the moment cannot even keep pace with the needs of service users, let alone their wants. And people seriously think that coffee is going to be on anyone's agenda?
I despair.