Zelda'sZecrets

We are supposed to be undergoing a food revolution in this country. We are now being educated in nutrition each time we shop so that we make the correct choices about the food we consume at home. Our school children have the opportunity, even if not always the inclination, to purchase a healthy midday meal. New initiatives to tackle obesity seem to be announced daily.

I visited a sick relative in hospital on a few occasions this week and was shocked to see the quality of food on offer to the patients. My first thought was repulsion. My second, later, was to wonder why there had been no similar ‘Jamie Oliver’ style campaign in this area. So I searched ‘hospital food’ on the internet. And, guess what, there was, back in 2001! This was its mission statement:

The Better Hospital Food initiative recognises that patients have a right to expect good quality, nutritious food, served to them at times which suit them, by staff who understand the important role that food plays in the care patients receive.

Loyd Grosmann, no less, was appointed Chair, working with leading chefs including Mark Hix and Michael Caines, to improve the situation. Call me cynical, but it seems to me that the project was doomed from the start when item number one on the agenda was ‘a new design for the printed menu, to make it more easily understandable’, with ‘a new NHS Menu with many exciting new dishes and a fresh look at some old favourites’ following on behind. There was no mention whatsoever of the state the food is in when it reaches the wards.

If what I witnessed this week is indicative of improved standards I thank my lucky stars I wasn’t in hospital in 2001. However, let us assume that with these august personages at the helm some improvements did occur. Yet, in The Observer Food Monthly on Sunday September 24 2006, Jay Rayner was still outraged to write about ‘thick, salty soup that looks like wallpaper paste, clearly made from artificially flavoured powder; a chicken-and-ham pie boasting a crust with all the texture of furniture foam and none of the flavour; inside, a meagre serving of misshapen, mechanically recovered 'meat' and a white sauce that is as claggy as the soup; dry mashed potato; over-cooked cabbage; a brick of cake with custard served cold.’

Undeterred, it seems, in October 2007, in ‘Managing Your Organisation’, the Department of Health, although not addressing the quality of the food, did decide to consider another reason why many patients were leaving their meals. ‘Protected mealtimes are periods on a hospital ward when all non-urgent clinical activity stops. During these times, patients are able to eat their meals without interruption and staff are readily available to offer help to those who need it. Research shows that patients whose mealtimes are protected eat more and are better nourished, improving their chances of recovery.’ Staff readily available to offer help with eating? From what I can see, staff are hard-pressed to offer help with pain relief.

The same document does recognise that  ‘Patients who receive good nutrition may have shorter hospital stays, fewer post-operative complications and less need for drugs and other interventions’. However, it still seems mistaken in its ideas of how to improve the situations. Again, it returns to the menus – ‘NHS menus traditionally change daily over 1-3 week cycles. This gives patients a choice of dishes over a week, but not so many to choose from each day. Flexi-menu systems offer a fixed menu for both lunch and evening meals, allowing patients to select the food they enjoy more than once. This increased choice may help to reduce food waste’. This is better than nothing but you only have to look at the food on the plate when it arrives in the ward to see that such a plan cannot work until increased choice is accompanied by increased standards of cooking and presentation. And whilst reducing food waste is advantageous it should surely be a secondary benefit rather than a primary aim.

 Even ‘Which?’, supposedly the consumer’s champion, offers this advice to people expecting a spell in hospital: ‘If your hospital stay is planned, make sure you eat a healthy and balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables in the run up to your admission.’ That just about says it all.

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