To have my Sunday lunch at the hospital canteen?

[Vacmat]

I don't work there, am not sick and wasn't visiting, but a friend works there and said they did a decent roast for £6.50. We'd had a busy morning and by late afternoon still needed lunch. Remembered conversation with friend and decided to try it.

It was fine. Nothing gourmet, but on a par with most chain pub roast lunches.

Is it odd to go to the hospital just for a cheap lunch?

Yes I think a hospital is more likely to have ill people in than a restaurant. Because it's a hospital

Ours is the same! It does good old fashioned school dinner type food ...it did sponge pudding and pink custard the other Sunday 😄

The roast chicken I had for Lunch from my hospital canteen today was delicious. Only three tiny potatoes though. Felt a bit ripped off!

What are people generally in hospital with , and wandering about, that's contagious though?

Can't think of anywhere or anything I would rather do than go to a bloody hospital for a Sunday lunch!
I do work in a hospital so that might jade by view, but seriously, a hospital canteen?

I can imagine this becoming more popular as people tighten their belts and restaurant prices are in some places piss takingly high.

A really ordinary pub near us advertising Sunday roast buffet for £19 a head? No way.
And that's just the main course. Desserts are £8. Apple pie and custard type.

A hospital local to us actively promotes this. There's often a group of ladies that get the bus up and the have lunch there.

Strange place to take your family. Eating at a hospital would give me the ick!

Don't worry, if they run out they will adjust their order for the new demand. You will be helping the hospital make money.

I think people finding it odd are odd. Go enjoy a roast!

(I'm with Joey on this one.)

I think if you're there for visiting or an appointment, then fine, but otherwise no I wouldn't go just for food.

Why not? DS (now an adult) used to be a regular at Birmingham Children's Hospital when the Police Station over the road was still open - they had was no canteen so it was fairly normal to see uniformed coppers in the hospital cafe.

Ill people, yes. Highly contagious people in the canteen? Less likely. Most inpatients do not use the canteen - they get their meals on the ward. Most inpatients (except maybe paediatrics) aren't in with contagious conditions.

The majority of customers in the canteen will be visitors, people who've been to outpatients, and staff. Occasionally relatives will bring a patient down, but that's not very often and wouldn't be allowed if they were in isolation on the ward. So I'd think the chances of catching anything serious would be fairly similar to visiting a busy shopping centre or similar.

OP, I've worked in hospitals for over 15 years and while I wouldn't make a special journey to eat there, I don't think it's the worst idea!

YANBU, you're supporting a local business that's open to all, nothing wrong with that.

My nearest M&S for click and collect orders is one in a hospital, am I going to refuse to take advantage of click and collect because it's a hospital? No way!

Don't listen to naysayers.

By your logic, hospital canteen staff would be sick all the time, but they're not.

Depends on your local hospital, ours is a magnet for the great unwashed and people who treat a hospital appointment as a day out and bring all the family it’s utterly depressing and I can’t imagine spending a minute more in the place than I need to.

My dad used to do the same. He lived a 5 min walk from the hospital and went a few times a week for a cooked breakfast.

No - definitely not. I only go into hospitals if i absolutely have to. Too many bad memories would resurface, also possible increased chance of illness.

Not odd at all. Our nearest hospital does excellent food - whether the patients on a ward or the staff and visitors in the canteen. It's about 12 miles from where I live, so not something I would ever do on a regular basis, but I have done it twice, when I was passing and it was lunch time!

Staff obviously get cheaper prices/discount, and anyone else pays full price - but the Full prices are very reasonable.

I think that’s really strange.

The parking would cost as much as the meal if we did this at our local hospital.

My local hospital canteen is dreadful. And really expensive. Pretty certain they don't do roasts. They do 'fresh' fish and chips on Fridays which is just about tolerable but the chips are like cardboard. So you're lucky.

If it's decent and cheap then definitely! I guess the only concern would be being unnecessarily close to a bunch of sick people. But the really sick ones probably wouldn't be able to get out of bed to go to the canteen in the first place.

My mum and I often popped in to the ‘league of friends’ cafe at our hospital if we were in that part of town.

They did the best sandwiches and cakes at good prices. Better than overpriced coffee shops.

Absolutely no one would know you’re not visiting anyone, you're just another customer. Personally I avoid hospitals if I don’t need to be in one, so I wouldn’t go to it in place of an outside eaterie, but you’re hardly depriving someone else of their dinner.

But everyone doesn’t do that do they? Are you going to start doing it because of OP?