Would YOU eat these meals? Bake Off's Prue Leith backs campaign for hospitals to meet government-enforced food standards
- The 77 year-old TV star is supporting the Campaign for Better Hospital Food
- She's previously spoken-out regarding the poor meals given to her mother
- She blamed contractors trying to save money, rather than hospital cooks
- Past studies say hospital food is so bad vulnerable patients suffer malnutrition
Bake Off’s Prue Leith has condemned the fact sick people in the nation’s hospitals are being fed ‘sludge’ and plastic ready meals.
The new judge on the Great British Bake Off is demanding legally enforceable minimum nutrition standards for hospital food.
The call follows evidence of what campaigners say are ‘diabolical’ failures by hospital caterers to serve fresh, nutritious food.
Not appealing: The Campaign for Better Hospital Food's Facebook page features images patients have taken from their hospital bed
Unimpressed: Prue has previously spoken-out regarding the poor meals given to her mother
Past studies have suggested that hospital food is so bad that vulnerable patients can suffer from malnutrition.
The Government has minimum legal quality and nutrition standards for prisons and schools, but there is no such protection for people in hospital.
Her call for action is based on a study by the Campaign for Better Hospital Food (CBHF), which found that half of London’s hospitals admit they are not meeting basic food standards.
Fewer than one in three are cooking fresh food on-site for their patients and around one in five are serving meals in plastic ready meal trays.
Miss Leith, 77, said: ‘Hospital food has a deservedly poor reputation and NHS patients and staff deserve better.
‘This report shows that at the moment most hospitals are not serving fresh, tasty and wholesome food so we must have legal standards, like those already in place for school food and prison food, to make sure good food is a priority in our hospitals.’
The food writer, restaurateur and novelist has had her own alarming evidence of poor hospital food based on meals given to her mother.
She wrote recently: ‘I once watched my mother lift a cloche from her plate. A grey lake slowly flowed to the edge. Next to this foul-smelling sludge was a pool of watery mash and some khaki peas.’
Fit for a king? One image shows pieces of fatty meat served on what appears to be a napkin
Mouldy toast: The NHS spends £568 million a year providing 138.5 million meals for inpatients — a daily cost of £10.93 per person
The NHS spends £568 million a year providing 138.5 million meals for inpatients — a daily cost of £10.93 per person
Miss Leith said it was contractors trying to save money who are to blame for the poor food, not hospital cooks.
‘All the staff do is reheat frozen meals and lay trays with difficult-to-undo packs of cutlery, sweaty squares of cheese, cheap biscuits and dabs of marge,’ she told The Oldie magazine. Miss Leith added: ‘We need to face the fact that a major overhaul is due, driven by two things – money and convictions.’
Co-ordinator of the CBHF, Katherine Button, said: ‘The situation in hospital food standards is diabolical.
Blame game: Ms Leith said it was contractors trying to save money who are to blame for the poor food, not hospital cooks
‘The Government has failed to take seriously the dire state of hospital food for too long. Good food plays an essential role in recovery, well-being and morale, and patients and staff in NHS hospitals deserve better.
‘The standard of food in schools and in prisons is protected by legal minimum standards and we demand the same high quality food for patients, staff and visitors eating in hospitals.’
Jo Ralling, of the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, said: ‘We’ve had legal food standards for schools and prisons for a decade, there’s no reason we can’t extend these same protections to hospitals.’
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