Why is NHS food so crap?

[SpeedyGonzalez]

here

Quite so.

I like the mumsnet suggestion in the comments - anyone game? Let's show them what's what!

Actually, it would be funny if we did send a suggested menu to the Chief Exec of the NHS...

I was in hospital twice last year, and the food was disgusting.
I'm not fussy, I'll eat anything, but it was so overcooked the veg were collapsing, and the meat was just fat.

The breakfast cereal was soft, not even stored right to keep it crisp, and the milk was warm.

Dessert was only offered at lunchtime, and you had to get in quick, or there was none left.

Trying to order a salad, say, tuna, meant undrained tuna, and it was really unpleasant.

I have no idea how eating this food is supposed to help you get well.
I gave up in the end, it made me feel sick, and I couldn't stand to put it in my mouth.

I ate fruit and crackers that my visitors brought in for me.
Oh, and can I say, there was no fruit given with hospital meals.

I was in hospital for a gallbladder removal nine years ago. I was supposed to have a lowfat diet but that wasn't available. Ever.
I ended up having rice from the halal option every day. Luckily my parents were able to supplement the rice or I'd have ended up with scurvy.

Having spent some time in hospital, I found the food inadequate and inedible. Gave up on the whole thing eventually and got friends and relatives to bring in entire meals rather than suffer further. If anyone I know is in hospital now, I do the same for them.

Marking my place to come back to this one.
Off out on my bike.
In the rain.
Yuk.

Just done a week at City Hospital in Birmingham, and I can do nothing but praise the improvement on the food in the last few years. It is unrecognisable from the slop a few years ago.

last year when i was on the maternity ward at kings lynn hospital i quite enjoyed the food. Nice big portions of veg with whatever i ordered, mostly gravy meals. Plus there was fruit and yoghurt.
I'm stunned there is a burger king at Addenbrooks!

There is a Burger King and Pizza Hut in Addenbrookes, but they are not making people eat it are they!

midoriway - that's good to hear - I remember dishing up meals that had no vegetables or anything fresh in them. I pointed this out to some of the nurses, who got very defensive and tried to convinced me that tinned baked beans counted as the vegetable.

Tinned baked beans do count as one of the five a day, thanks to the tomato sauce (processed tomatoes are actually better for you than fresh, as tomatoes have tough cell walls - more nutrients available if those walls have been broken down before you eat).

But clearly hospital catering that relies on a dollop of baked beans and nowt else is not good.

It's one of those areas where it's entirely fair to blame the Tories - they contracted out school dinners and hospital catering to the cheapest supplier. The last Labour government introduced nutritional standards for hospital meals so if some trusts are still serving slop, something has gone wrong.

At the trust I work in they have made a huge effort to improve the situation - using local suppliers for some meats, fruit and veg, and a proper soup made from scratch each day.
The result - patients complaining that it was bland and tasteless, and refusing to eat!

I think it depends what hospital your in, our local hospital has terrible food. DS stays in for weeks at a time and lives off a rotation of Fish Stars or Chicken Dippers... they do try to be fair after I had a chat with them about it and they send the chef up so DS can order special food.

However the Royal Brompton in London has really nice food, they have a lot of choice and come round mid day with snacks for the kids, I couldn't rate thier food higher, it must be a budget thing.

When I was in maternity last year I really struggled. Dh brought me a bag of chopped veg & loads of fruit each day as veggie meals were pretty non existent. One day I ordered jacket pot & cheese. Yhe potato was tiny & microwaved (not entirely cooked) and the cheese was in atiny pot which had been in the hot cupboard. The Mw came when I was eating & said she had had jacket pot & cheese in the canteen & had salad, twice as much cheese & a large potato. Dh ate in the canteen most days and got good food yet mine was awful & I was post op & breastfeeding.

The food at C&W was pretty good when I had DS2 there last year.

I had missed dinner but one of the midwives on the ward went and fetched me a snack box thing which had some fruit and yoghurt and a passable ham sandwich.

Lunch the next day was pretty nice, the only downside was the 'breakfast' was a cup of tea and 2 slices of toast. I was fucking ravenous but luckily DH was on his way in and stopped at Carluccios for the rather extensive list I had texted him.

It must vary hugely according to postcodes (like everyone else really).

Agree, horrible food is served. But what is the budget; it used to be something pathetic.

The halal food tends to be much better ( the meals cost more & seem to be much better quality) in taste & healthwise.

Because most of the time, it's not NHS.

It's been contracted out to a private company.

That's what privatisation is about, cutting corners to increase profits.

I was in a high dependency unit after my third (her birth went fine, but I reacted to the shot to speed getting the placenta out which caused massive hemmoraging requiring blood transfusions). The day after I arrived, I was forgotten about all day due to staff rowing with another patient for hours and eventually in the evening I was given a horrid, slightly rancid smelling ham sandwich (apparently a leftover from the nurses station). This was the high dependency unit for women who were connected to tubes and wires so couldn't get out of beds on their own, with very limited visit rules, and we were given leftover sandwiches. It's absoultely ridiculous.

Last time dd was in hospital the food was being cooked in South Wales (a couple of hours drive) and delivered in. It was crap and not a patch on how it was when made on the premises some years ago.

Aside from the environmental impact of the food miles, I cannot fathom how this can be a) cheaper and b)more nutritionally sound than fresh food cooked on the premises.

for some kids though freaky hospital foodwould stop them even eating

mine wouldnt eat casseroles etc

Both times i've been an inpatient at the end of pregnancy I've actually lost quite a lot of weight as the food has been so horrific I've lived on cheese and crackers.

How people are supposed to get better/heal while eating complete slop is a mystery to me.

I doesn't need to be freaky food though. Even sausage and mash( and I use the term loosely - it tasted remarkeably like Smash to me) doesn't taste good having travelled a couple of hundred miles, been reheated and sat in a warmer in the corridor for half an hour.

Ok, it was a few years ago but when I was hospitalised for months, the vegan option was lettuce, tomato and a spoonful of rice every single meal apart from breakfast.
I went down to 7 stone. Not great if you are trying to carry a child to full term.

I was offered a sandwich after having our last child, 24 hours after giving birth. Staff said that if I wanted anything else, to go to the shops in the main concourse but they did not seem to have much more than chips and junk food.

Spent 3 days in Aberdeen Maternity Hospital in November and the food was great.

A choice of four mains/2 puddings. Lunch was soup and choice of sandwiches and piece of fruit. Choice of cereals for breakfast with roll and jams/butter and fruit juice.

Oh god I so agree with this cardiologist. Our high profile local teaching hospital has Burger King on site, has banned sales of cigarettes and smoking but does nothing about nutrition.

There is a wide range of food available at the hospital, 90% of it is unhealthy and 100% of it is vastly over priced. Although this is unpopular with patients, visitors and staff, nothing is done. There are plenty of local firms that would be delighted to come in and offer cheaper and healthier food but they are banned from the site.

It is nothing short of a scandal imo.

Food at my local hosp is yum, v happy with it.

If they can get it right in some places why not all.

I spent 2 days in Arrowe Park and was given nothing but sandwiches, they don't allow hot meals on the maternity ward in case you scaled the baby, but a boiling cup of tea is fine