Hospital food is "stale, flabby, slimy, soggy, nutrient-free, ghastly and execrable". In the circumstances, it may seem a bit of a cheek to suggest that Michele Hanson understates the problem, but I think she does. Hanson's friend Serena has gone into hospital and discovered just how bad the food can be – Hanson says "constipation rules".
According to the UK's Cabinet Office, we face a diet-related ill-health crisis that is likely to cost the NHS £6bn per year. Hanson understates the problem because it's not just that the food in many hospitals is still terrible – many elderly patients enter hospital malnourished and leave more malnourished. What's worse is that hospitals generally are failing to set an example of a positive, healthy food culture. Food should be valued. Of course, it should be healthy, fresh and tasty. But it should also be enjoyable, a vital part of any hospital's service to its patients, and setting a standard for the rest of society to follow.
When the Soil Association looked at hospital food in a report we produced a couple of years ago – Not What the Doctor Ordered (pdf) – we found some hospitals sending all the wrong messages. For example, back then in Guy's hospital in London, a huge Coca-Cola vending machine sat smugly under the sign to the dietetics and nutrition department. Addenbrooke's hospital had a Burger King inside. Nurses went there to get food for patients in the children's ward once a week. Nothing wrong with that, but this was being presented as a "treat" – none of this sending very positive messages about healthy eating.
It needn't be like this. Indeed, in some ground-breaking hospitals, it certainly is not. Mike Duckett, the catering manager at the Royal Brompton Hospital, has led the way in sourcing fresh, local ingredients (pdf) from farms near London, including some organic food. The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trusts (pdf) completely changed their food-sourcing practices with the help of an expert seconded from the Soil Association. They found that real Cornish dairy fruit ice cream was not only very popular with patients, but also contained more nutrients than those little powder sachets hospitals used at considerable expense to improve nutrient intake, especially for elderly patients.
In the past, a patient described hospital fishcakes as having much the same texture and taste as a used hockey ball. Now, a local Cornish fisherman provides fishcakes made from locally caught fish and Cornish potatoes, and patients are delighted. Indeed, patient satisfaction with the meals is extremely high and food miles were cut by 67%, and all of this was done within the existing budget. Nottingham University Hospital Trust's City Campus was the first hospital to be accredited to the Soil Association new Food for Life catering mark, and it is also sourcing from local farmers and serves excellent meals.
So the Soil Association warmly welcomes Hanson's new campaign, encouraging "anyone who spots crap food in care homes and hospitals to phone in and spill the beans". We're keen to get many more hospitals to sign up to our Food for Life catering mark. This has bronze, silver and gold levels, to encourage caterers progressively to improve the quality of the food they source and serve to their patients. A key element of the standards is to insist that 75% of the food should be unprocessed, so that meals have to be freshly prepared and cooked. In addition, to achieve the gold mark, hospitals and other institutions must also source 50% of their food locally, and 30% should be organic or Marine Stewardship Council certified fish. The standards not only encourage freshly cooked meals but also high standards of animal welfare, lower environmental impact and lower carbon footprints.
Anyone wanting to join Hanson's campaign can email their findings to my colleague at ehockridge@soilassociation.org. A wide range of organisations, from nurseries, through school and hospital caterers to football clubs, are already signed to the Food for Life catering mark. So, like Hanson, who likes to look on the bright side, I'm optimistic. We can change the quality of catered food, and the care taken in its preparation and serving, so that people like Hanson's friend Serena don't have to suffer the "execrable" food she has experienced.
