RAYMOND Blanc has backed a campaign to halt the closure of community hospital kitchens in Oxfordshire.

The chef, who runs Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons at Great Milton, is one of 16 high-profile signatories of a letter to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

They warn the plans to close kitchens at Chipping Norton, Didcot, Wallingford, Wantage and Witney community hospitals and serve patients ready meals – known as cook-chill – could end up costing the trust more.

The letter, addressed to Oxford Health chief executive Stuart Bell, read: “We ask you to halt the closure of kitchens at our community hospitals... and to carry out a thorough public consultation before changing to prepacked ready meals which are delivered to Oxfordshire from another part of the country.”

It goes on: “Trusts may be able to make short-term savings by closing kitchens, for example by making redundancies to catering staff directly employed by the trust.

“However, some hospitals are showing it might cost more to buy food from private contractors than to have it made in-house, and therefore may lead to higher catering costs in the long-term.”

In March 2010, Mr Blanc sampled the John Radcliffe Hospital’s cook-chill meals during a two-week stay after he broke his leg. The Michelin-starred chef found the spicy chicken tikka to be the best dish.

The letter has also been signed by the co-ordinator of the national Campaign for Better Hospital Food Alex Jackson, chairman of the Hospital Caterers Association Andy Jones and Jacquie Pearce-Gervis, chairwoman of Oxfordshire’s Patient Voice group who previously said the move would be a “step back to the dark ages”.

More than 320 people have signed an online petition.

The trust plans to close kitchens between April and June. Cook-chill meals are already served at community hospitals in Abingdon, Henley, Bicester and Oxford.

Oxford Health spokeswoman Rhianne Pope said cookchill meals would cost a third of fresh food, and savings could be put back into clinical services. She said: “The most recent survey, conducted in March, showed 90 per cent of patients rated [cookchill] food as good or excellent and ten per cent rated it as acceptable.”