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...

Sardine!! I am so sorry, I was responding to Sauvignonblanche, who gave me a at my 'generalisation' in the thread title! By the time I got to the bottom of the thread I'd clearly forgotten the name of the poster and thought it was you! SO sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry...

JellyKat - thanks for the plug!

Jareth - and I thought the yellow hue was indicative of the food having been fortified with extra vitamins. So you mean the lettuce they served me wasn't meant to be yellow either?

Anyway, SauvignonBlanche, if you're still around...nice taste in wines, matey but to your post!

SpeedyG - Ya didn't have something to do with the prog.. did ya?

Sorry, didn't mean plug - crap vocab choice! I meant thanks for the heads-up (though I hate that phrase!). So no, I didn't have anything to do with the programme.

Phew!

Hi Speedy - I'm still here!
I don't see being sceptical as being insulting and I'm sorry of you took it that way.
Let's have a instead.

It's not all bad op.

My local hospital has lovely food.

I am unable to eat dairy- 'just' an intolerance but one that gives me severe dsiarrhoea and makes me vomit in real pain.

When I was in hospital with the DS's 1 and 2 I wasn't given an alternative at all; eighteen hours after ds1's birth I drank a glass of milk as I was so hungry and ended in agony. Breakfasts were dry cereal and hot water. (I;d been rushed in so no cahnce to take foods with me, DH by my side)

It was a huge contributory factor to my decision for a Hb with ds4.

The canteen at my local big hospital is fab, but the served food not. DS4 was rushed to A&E for an emergency op last eyar and I was BF, I was given teh choice of toast for him or me (he was 2) but not both but I couldn't leave him either as he was so distressed post op. Luckily we were home in a few hours thank goodness.

I suspect it's bad because

1. so little money is spent on the food
2. so little is paid to the catering staff
3. lack of cooking training/skills/knowledge of catering staff
4. the strange mindset of the public sector when it comes to what constitutes healthy food

I could be wrong.

I'll join in with a

It is disgraceful that hospital food has not imroved over the last few years. In 2000 a 40 million pound initiative headed by Loyd Grossman seemed to be wholly ineffective and now a decade later (I guess at great expense) the chef Heston Blumenthal has been called in to to 'give it a go' After experiencing a stay in hospital I was invited to look over the catering arrangements. Although it just so happens that my career is in 'food' I think that any person with a little sense could work out the problems at 'my' hospital. The food in the kitchen was expertly cooked and looked extremely appetising. It was then dished up onto plates with covers and placed in an electrically heated trolley. It then travelled to the ward - some being a quater of a mile away!! Then it was plugged in on the ward and left till somebody had time to dish it out. By the time the patient received it - it was a sad replica of a meal. I know that staffing is a problem but if this sort of system is in operation it needs a dedicated memeber of staff to take it from the kitchen and serve it out to the patients as soon as it reaches the ward. Let's face it - there is nobody working on the ward who is going to race to dish it out. I feel sympathy for hospital cooks. They manage on a disgustingly low budget and provide the best they can in most cases. Don't blame the kitchen - blame the organisation!!

Why the fuck would you get heston in to overhaul hospital food. What a gimmick. The people who set that up should hang their heads in ignorance and shame.

Interesting perspective, Fifi. That does explain it in part (but doesn't explain why my so-called fishcake looked like an orange breezeblock! )

pointy - too right re Heston. Yet more expensive waste in the NHS.

Wine AND tea, Sardine and Sauvignon? I'll toast to that! Can't be arsed with spats, life's too short!

tbh I dont think the NHS should be providing free food to all patients.

When so many cuts are being made it seems bizarre that, in theory at leat, millionaires are being given a free meal paid for by people on the minimum wage!

There should be free meals for those who cant afford it like at school. the others should pay or provide their own.

Same goes for bedsheets.

It's save £££££

Relatives are expected to provide food for patients in hospitals abroad, and they are also expected to wash them and provide personal care. That's always a possibility.

The hospital food problem is in the news at the moment because the government want us all to get the impression that everything to do with the NHS is crap and it needs privatising changing. Prepare yourselves for a concerted assault in the next few months.

Hospital food needs to be improved in some hospitals, but not outsourced, imo. Decent food is part of the convalescence process, surely.

Thanks for the link, Speedy. It's a great article.

I've always presumed that Hospital Food IS outsourced. Running a catering operation is hardly the kind of thing that we expect Hospital administrators to be doing.

It's crap because we don't spend enough money on it.

I would imagine that Heston is being paid for by the production company btw.

I had some delicious roast beef when I was in hospital last year. People are just fussy and ungrateful IMO - it's given to you free of charge, after all.

Cuppatea - fussy??? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Tell that to the surgeon who wrote the article. And it's clearly NOT free of charge - not to taxpayers.

Agree, however, budgets have to be met and so much money just is wasted. Heating on, windows open is just one of the inefficent ways hospitals are run.

A lot of it now is made off site by companies that use the cheapiest ingedients.

Horrible.

'fussy and ungrateful'

The food I was given was just utter crap.

The 'soup' had salty globs of undissolved orange powder in it. Served with one slice of plastic white bread.

That has no business being served as a meal to those most in need of something nourishing to eat.

I was lucky, my local hospital food was actually quite nice.
During the time I was there after having DD, someone came round from catering with a questionnaire and asked lots of questions about the food and also told me as a nursing Mum I was entitled to extra food if I wanted it and encouraged all the women on the maternity ward to take an extra sandwich in the evening to eat during the night, they also told us we could have the halal food too, but asked that preference be given first to any Muslim ladies (fair enough) and the curries were really yummy.
There was plenty to eat, it was cooked ok and was hot. At lunch and dinner there was hot food or cold sandwiches available and some pudding.
Breakfast was a bit dismal but there was fruit offered twice a day and they left the bread and fruit juice available until mid morning in case anyone wanted more.

It must vary a lot from hospital to hospital then, because anybody who is given the same food as I had and moans about it is fussy and ungrateful IMO.

The only minor problem was the fact that the main course and pudding was delivered at the same time, so the pudding would be cold by the time the first course had been eaten. I got around this when I was hungry enough for 2 courses by ordering the sandwich option, then eating the meal backwards - pudding first, followed by sandwiches.