Hospital food

[EllaSW]

Has anyone ever tried to tackle the quality of hospital food (Jamie Oliver style)? It doesn’t need to be perfect but my goodness it’s diabolical. How do they expect patients who are attempting to recover to do well on the crap they’re fed?

DS1’s best friend was in with a brain injury before Christmas. They went through everything that was on the menu but he didn’t want any of it. Tbh he eats beige, beige and more beige at the best of times so DS1 jokingly told the lady who was doing the meal orders she’d be better off offering his friend the children’s menu, so that’s what they did. He was proper chuffed with his chicken nuggets, chips, fish fingers, baked beans and hot dogs for the rest of his stay.

When DS1 visited him on another occasion he took him a McDonalds but he wasn’t on a ward with anyone else so there was no one offended by the smell.

Exactly. Home made soups, chilli, stews, curries and cottage pie. All are pretty simple a.tasty. and of course nutritional. Loads and loads of bilk meals. It's doesn't need to be expensive. Lentil curry as in your example. That ice cream is vile. I wonder the cost diff between that and a banana or a small bit of cheese and a couple of biscuits

I think it depends also on whether the hospital still has a kitchen for patient foods. I believe some use hub models to cut costs so food may be made off site.

nhs is completely piece meal which leads to drastic differences between trusts, wastage and a postcode lottery.

My adult son was in hospital in March for 5 weeks, this was a Sunday roast apparently

Haha! I don't know tbh. It might have been better a few years back or something? Or maybe they did mean a different st George's. Mind you the nurses dont have to eat the ward meals so how would they even know?!

Sorry you and your son both had rotten food in hospital. I think maybe I was lucky.

Fortunately It’s been a long time since I’ve been in hospital but I still remember the ‘meals’ on the post natal ward. No breakfast the morning after my c-section because I was still numb from the epidural and couldn’t get to the table to fetch anything. They didn’t deliver meals to the bed as ‘you new mums need to be up and about as soon as possible’. Lunch was a slice of processed chicken, half a tomato and a couple of lettuce leaves. Dinner was a plain baked potato with no butter or toppings.

I was in for a week as DS was quite poorly and had to send DH out for snacks otherwise I’d probably have starved. I was also berated by staff repeatedly as my milk didn’t come in and I couldn’t feed DS. Not surprised on their starvation rations.

I really think it depends on the hospital, I really enjoyed the food I had in hospital! It was a treat not having to cook too 🤣

Having worked in about 20 hospitals its v variable. I worked in Scarborough when Jamie Oliver was there,can't say the food tasted any better than before

James Martin did. He went to a hospital and showed them how to cook from scratch. And that it was nutritionally better, the patients liked it and it was cheaper for the hospital.
He sought to find support from politicans etc. Who on the surface all seemed interested and supportive.
He left hoping he had made a difference.
Sadly, the hospital went back to buying in ready made stuff. More expensive, less healthy and less liked by the patients.

Why this happened I do not know. Laziness, stubbornness, money, contracts. Whatever the reason it was a disgrace really. And did not show the hospital in a good light at all.

That was James Martin.
Jamie did a school and tried to upgrade the food offering. But found the local parents feeding their children unhealthy stuff through the fences.

Does t surprise me. All fur coat and all that.

I was in intensive care about a year ago and the food was tasty. They had their own kitchen though and the cook would come out and talk to us.

Then I moved to a ward. The food was rank. They had food brought in.

At a cancer hospital stay many years ago the food was gorgeous.

It is possible so I don’t know why it doesn’t happen.

Otherwise just let subway in to do all hospital catering!

Never ever had a Subway, the bell when you’re in the vicinity is enough to put me off 🤮. I would resort to Uber eats if they instigated that!

They can do better, our hospital has a private wing where meals are cooked to order. They just don’t have the budget for the rest of us.

My ds enjoys the hospital food when he's been in. His brother wasn't impressed with the food on the day surgery unit though. He woke up at lunchtime and was offered a biscuit. Which I thought was fair enough but he didn't. Thankfully he was told that he was clearly ready to go home so we went via the tesco cafe.

I found the food on the maternity unit nice when I was allowed to eat it, was nil by mouth all day twice.

Staff pay for their food. Like you do in a lot of workplaces. It has nothing to do with the food served for patients.
You can't compare it.

The NHS, including meals, is free at the point of delivery and paid for - by the people, for the people. Perhaps we should have an option to pay for some things.

On the rare occasions I've been in hospital, the food hasn't been bad.

In that case they should provide meals according to need. My diet is high fibre with tons of vegetables. It’s not much fun going home constipated.

so…. You do select the vegetable option

Sub ways are tasty.

The smell from hospital food in the ward was disgusting.

One dinner time my plate was given to me. It was that grey veg with some green slop beside it. I asked what was it. She took a look and said no idea! I put it faraway from me.

Eveb the tea was awful. Both stewed and weak. In the end I got sone tea bags from home and just asked for hot water.

At the Royal Berks hospital it is absolutely diabolical. How anyone in there for a long time doesn’t get malnutrition, I’ll never know. Staff there are superb, but the food is dreadful.

I was in for a couple of weeks during covid. I actually felt like a huge effort went into getting the food down to the patients but the quality was so poor. Obviously if you've just been admitted you can't choose but once you got the menu you could add extra veg or opt for larger portions.
There's huge waste involved and it seems such a shame. I think there's some grounds for charging for food but then you'd get people complaining.

My DD has been an in-patient for 2 stays of 1 month each and currently in week 13 of a stay, since November, so she has views on hospital food…most of it not good.

I was hungry after waking up. This was delicious
cheese and onion pie, peas and gravy
ice cream
yoghurt
bread roll
jam roly poly and custard
2 mugs of tea and 2 pieces of cake

I've been lucky enough to have my longest hospital stay funded by insurance and the importance they place on nutrition as a part of your recovery compared to the NHS is staggering. I saw a dietician, my bloods were monitored for deficiencies, eating was monitored - it was all seen as making the best recovery possible.
In contrast the NHS food was rank, limp sandwiches, cup a soups, very little protein, salad was a few limp leaves and soggy tomato and any pudding - mouse, ice cream was a chemically tasting concoction. They didn't care whether you ate or not. We had to take food in for my DS as he is coeliac and we couldn't reliably trust them.

It varies by hospital. My friend was in Leicester and their food actually looked amazing whereas a family member at Kingston was served very sad meals