Hospital food: AIBU?

[IrenetheQuaint]

My 75-year-old father is in hospital - one of the best hospitals in the country - with unexplained breathing difficulties. He is not at all fussy and will generally eat anything put in front of him... but he finds the hospital food disgusting to the point of being almost inedible. I was briefly in the same hospital 15 years ago and found the same thing.

There are a few shops and cafes in the entrance bit but he is on oxygen and can't get to them. Fortunately my brother lives nearby and has managed to bring him some food in (I live 2 hours away and have a stinking cold so can't get there myself). But what about people who have no families nearby, or who can't afford to go to M&S etc two or three times a day?

How can the medical care be so good but the food so bad? If airlines can supply basic but perfectly edible food in complicated circumstances then why can't hospitals?? Good healthy food is an essential part of recovery from illness... it's appalling that the NHS can't supply this (or at least, not at this large and internationally respected hospital).

I know it costs money, but couldn't they bring in a scheme where patients contributed to food costs, with subsidies for those who can't afford it. Even a voluntary donation of £5 per person per day would surely enable a massive improvement in the service? I can't believe other Western countries are so rubbish in this respect?

Dd2 has just spent a week in hospital so we have been sampling hospital food. In our childrens' hospital they also feed breastfeeding mums. They have a good new system where a chef brings up a trolley and you go out and choose. You can see what looks tasty and can always get a sandwich freshly made or a salad. They also have fridges in the rooms and a kitchen with a microwave.

The adult hospital isn't too bad if you are on a longer stay ward where you pre-order, but on maternity etc. it is just soup and a dry sandwich. They do at least cook the food onsite though, and you can specify portion size!

I've worked in several hospitals and while the tastiness of the food has varied hugely, none of it has been healthy.

I worked in a mental health unit where the food was genuinely delicious, but unfortunately not very healthy at all and the portions were huge so the patient's would often put on a significant amount of weight, especially if they were there for a long time. I was also pretty appalled when we went to the hospital to visit my FIL and the first meal they served him after he'd suffered a massive heart attack was fish and chips followed by chocolate sponge and custard! The hospital staff were (quite rightly) having very frank words with him about how he needed to change his lifestyle (he is overweight and lives a very sedentary life) and the food he was offered just seemed completely at odds with what they were trying to achieve.

I'm aghast at some of these tales. I had several stays in hospital (both pre- and post- natal) when having my daughter. The food was shocking.

Breakfast was a choice of cornflakes, branflakes or weetabix and a slice of toast. Lunch and dinner were served from a kitchen where you, or your partner, had to collect it. Normally, there was a hot meal available plus sandwiches or salads. Portions were woefully inadequate for women breastfeeding and the quality of the food was questionable at best. I quickly learnt the veggie option was the best - although if i was ever in again, I'd consider ordering a halal or Indian veggie meal instead.

I had jaw surgery at 15, first time on an adult ward. Woke up from op with jaw wired shut. Breakfast came- Cornflakes. I cried bitter confused morphine induced tears at that.
I'd been hoping time might have sorted the hospital food thing but when I had DD almost 2 years ago the food was woeful. There was only one thing on the menu I liked. Menu was the same each day. I always ordered the same and on day 3 the HCA assistant laughed at my choice.
When I say liked mean tollerated. No wonder my milk didn't come in after hardly eating anything. Was so glad to get home.

Paying £5 a day towards food,wouldn't be a tax on the sick....everyone has to eat ...people would still be paying for their food if they weren't in hospital

It would be a tax on the sick and, like many things, it would be the most punative toward the most vulnerable.

How many people on the breadline do you know spend £5 per person per day on food?

Also how do you suggest long term patients, who will have their benefits stopped whilst in hospital, afford to pay more than normal for their food?

I've allways had terrible hospital food. Had dh & friends bring me food when I was in having kids.

It can be worse though. I worked in residential schools I accompanied a young person in hospital after she had her tonsils out. She ate everything served up (which looked disgusting) because the food served at the school was that bad she though the hospital food was amazing : (

We took in between 2500 & 6000 per young person per week yet fed them food worse than the hospital gunk.

I think we are going towards financial contribution towards our medical care, which include the food when you are in hospital. It might mean lowering other benefits, so there is a special fund for people struggling when they go to hospital, but we are getting there. You can't have people on benefits being able to afford holidays abroad and luxury, whilst others are not fed in hospital, it does not make any sense.

My local [large, inner-London, teaching] hospital fails epically at feeding me. I'm vegetarian with an anaphylactic allergy to [even trace amounts of] all dairy products; mercifully the central London hospital trust responsible for the majority of my care can cope!

At my local hospital I've more than once been left without food for days. The ward that serves as a step-down from HDU has a staff culture that can best be described as - and I do not use the term lightly - abusive [towards patients]. After a lengthy discussion about the fact that, despite the fact the pescetarians at her church called themselves vegetarians, I was not about to start eating fish, BECAUSE I AM ACTUALLY A VEGETARIAN. And that that I can't have any dairy at all, no, not any of it, my allergy is anaphylactic. She then did my food order & when it arrived on the ward that evening, waited until my father was away from my bedside, put it on my table & left very quickly. It was fish with potatoes in a creamy sauce. By this point I hadn't eaten for 4 days & I cried. My father went to the local Chinese takeaway & I managed a couple of tablespoons (if that) of the rice & mushrooms he got me, but it felt so SO good to eat something! It was another few days before they got a dietitian to come to the ward, and she bought in some food for me. Which was allowed to run out...

By contrast, "my" hospital trust have a vegan menu, but on admission the dietitian will come to see me & draw up a meal plan with me, which will be reviewed as necessary during my stay. The hospital provide soya milk & soya yoghurt (at local hospital those had to be brought in by family or bought by dietitian specially) though I do have to bring in dairy-free margarine myself. The mealplan gets thrown off with alarming regularity though, meaning the same meals appear 4 times on the trot etc...

Although they have a much better range of menus, I've seen some pretty poor application of them. In one of my admissions last summer there was a lady in the bed opposite mine who had forgotten basically all of her English. The staff kept bringing her unsuitable food & either being cross she hadn't eaten it, or she would trustingly eat things forbidden in Hinduism, assuming them to be the meat substitutes with which she was familiar. I told her son as soon as I realised what was happening & said there was a vegan menu & he could ask she could be given that instead. It happened patchily, so I found myself advocating for her. And reading the menu for the 95 year-old lady whose sightloss meant she couldn't do so herself, and her hearing loss meant she struggled to understand the thick West Indian accents of the catering staff assigned to our bay. She felt as if they were shouting at her rather than just making themselves loud enough to be heard, and they didn't allow for the fact she wasn't actually able to read the menu before they got there. Our bay was hosting the bed-blocker extraordinaire Baroness Munchausen so the catering staff hated coming to us as she would decide to have something new she couldn't eat - as soon as I arrived on the ward she was a vegetarian & she couldn't have any dairy products...

whataboutbob, your colleagues who had to work with the aforementioned Baroness deserve actual medals - she threw an actual screaming tantrum on the day I was discharged AND the day before because the dietitian came to see me & not her. And claimed it was because of where I went to university. Yup. That MA Cantab gets me all-hours access to NHS dietitians, nothing to do with clinical need & my going home with an NJ tube for the first time. (She wanted a feeding tube as well, incidentally, so after googling what might get her one, decided to go with an inability to swallow. Oh, she kept eating, but she wasn't swallowing the food, nooooo. It was dissolving in her mouth. Especially the ravioli. Which she was fine with. Despite needing a gluten-free diet... I can laugh about it now, but she made me cry at the time with a rant about how I didn't NEED a feeding tube & she was REALLY ill & everyone fussing over me meant she was being neglected & people even watched me when I slept like I was a baby & it was so unfair... unf...)

Oh & there's no way I could afford £5/day for food. As PPs have mentioned, many of the people who end up in hospital on the regular &/or for lengthy stays simply don't have that kind of money.

Protected mealtimes, as mentioned by a PP, are a splendid idea, but does anyone else find they seem to be a theory not a practice or am I just lucky like that...?

And on that note, having seen a very nice community dietitian this morning, I have a [soya] yoghurt to get eaten...

I'm coeliac, so need gluten free food. Its not a choice, its a life long medical condition. TBH, when in hospital, I am grateful for anything gluten free. However, breakfast in our local dgh has nothing gluten free. Lunch and tea are ordered 24 hours in advance and can't be changed - so day1 I get nothing. If you move wards, your order disappears. On one admission I had 1 meal in 7 days, and that was only as a staff member went to the canteen to get me something as she felt so sorry for me.
However airline food is no better. I'm a very frequent flyer and have had the same meal on BA and United for the last 5 years - and its grim.

e1y1 you said it yourself, if you PAY for your hospital stay in ROI you get great food and stay. Have you missed out on what the public system is like?

I didn't find it THAT bad. Was in for four days after having my son. It was boring, and the total lack of condiments was weird and unhelpful, but there was usually something okay, and we got several choices at each meal, and always had fruit or veg. I am, admittedly, not a fussy eater, but even with severe nausea I managed to find things to eat.

There was toast and cereal at breakfast, tea, biscuits, and fruit midmorning and midafternoon, sandwiches, soups and salads for lunch, and three choices of hot meal plus salad and dessert in the evening. And if I was very hungry I could request soup, sandwich, AND salad, for example.

AndNowItsSeven it was omelette and mash yes! The omelette looked like a pasty and the mash was very grey. Dad did try it but couldn't stomach it. Most days I took him up some homemade soup or cauliflower cheese, but felt sorry for the people who had no visitors.

I spent a month in hospital when I had my twins (3 weeks before and 1 week after) and once I got the hang of the Menus and how many side portions you can get..etc I learned to like it!

When DD1 was in (for 8 months bar 3 weeks), the food was appalling. I ended up having to bring in food. It was inedible. I didn't bother filling out the card 90% of the time.

As for £5/day contribution, plenty of people cannot afford that as they've had their benefits cut due to being in hospital.

I had knee surgery at 14/15 and had to have all my meals brought it. I'm the first to admit I'm a fussy eater but ever my mam wouldn't touch it.

In comparison in every psychiatric hospital I've been in the food has been amazing. Which is odd as mental health services are normally severely lacking in funding.

albus maybe its just me but that Mac n cheese with green beans actually looks good to me right now haha

I was in hospital being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the meal given was full of carbs and sugar!

I agree. Most people are in sick, so why offer complicated but horrid meals. I mean I like a curry, but a hospital curry when sick isn't going to be nice

They need to go back to simple to prepare, healthy basics. Things people can eat nibble when not great, and nutrious to boost immune system.

Breakfast : porridge, bread, cheese, jam, yogurt, banana

Lunch : 3 sandwich options, with 2 differnet soups ( can pick with healthy veg). Patients can pick. Add some seasonal fruit and yogurt, piece cheese.

Dinner: 2 different simple casserole one pot type things( can pack with veg), with bread. Rice pudding, yogurt or fruit.

I would be happy with the £5 suggested fee. It doesn't have to be compulsory or chased up. But a simple donation box like you get in free museums you can choose to walk past, donate 20p or £20. No not everyone can afford or would choose, but a % however large would which is better than nothing.

Those advocating that people pay for meals in hospitals, what happens to those who don't pay?
And I cook from scratch largely. For one adult it would only cost £2 a day for food at home that is way way better than hospital food. If I had to pay for hospital food, I would want to opt out and get people to bring food in.

£5 a day? I spend £80 a MONTH on groceries for DD2 and I. No way, particularly as they don't see to be able to cater for my dietary requirements either - same as Zebra I am contact anaphylactic to dairy. I've given up trying to explain my allergies and intolerances now, as they are either fruit or meat based I have simply gone vegan - if I order vegan and state my dairy allergy they can't fuck it up.

Except they do. They give me the wrong fucking order, and nearly kill me. I mostly take my own food in now, it's amazing how long you can last on toast, bananas, and alpro choc puds.

I'm always suspicious when an extra charge is floated for something we already pay for.
It feels like politicians are testing the waters...

I remember ordering cheesy potato bake. It came with a side of dry mashed potatoes. I looked at my plate of dinner, all potato, and could have cried.

Potatoes are considered medicine if you have asthma and allergies - afaik we all seem to subsist on potatoes as inpatients

There is actully a chart online if you Google that shows how much your local hospital trust sends per day per food.
Im a catering assistant in a hospital and it's cook chill food most of it is OK I probably wouldn't eat it if I didn't have to but the food is really good quality the veg is all frozen the chips are mcain the roast potatoes aunt Bessie's it just all looks horrible when it's done. The trust is one of the higher spenders it costs £13ish a day to feed a patient and to be honest it's mainly older people and they don't ever complain about the bland food it tastes of nothing because it has to be salt free and fat free and taste free and the trust is really good for gluten free and fat free dairy free diets the only person I've struggled to feed once was a vegan but when the issue was brought up with management they went shopping to morrisons for what she wanted every morning.

Oh and lavender those omellettes government me the boak. They are frozen and smell like feet I don't know how anyone can eat them our trust had them for a few weeks but us catering assistants complained that much they got rid of them.