The Sun says: NHS food is a scandal

They should explode with rage

The dismal standard of NHS catering is such an accepted part of British life that few people kick up a stink about it.

Perhaps that’s our problem.

But when a Big Mac is healthier than most of the slop dished up to the sick and vulnerable, it’s time we recognised this as a national scandal that must be addressed.

A hospital should be the last place you’re served an unhealthy meal packed with salt and fat.

But as the Sun-backed Campaign for Better Hospital Food reveals on Page 19, fast-food derided as ‘junk’ is now significantly less perilous to our health than the microwaved, curling filth that arrives on trays from hospital kitchens.

A Big Mac, a KFC Zinger Burger with fries and a Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza have lower levels of salt and saturated fat than much NHS food.

One hospital pasta dish had more than three times the recommended daily intake of fat and twice the recommended salt.

No wonder 30million NHS meals a year are binned, uneaten. Or that hospital vending machines do a roaring trade. Crisps and chocolate aren’t healthy either, but at least you know what you’re eating.

Some patients are lucky enough to have daily visitors bringing in supermarket meals. Or wealthy enough to shell out in the visitors’ cafe.

The rest, like orphans in Victorian workhouses, eat the gruel or go hungry.

A handful of hospitals DO allocate to their kitchens the resources to provide decent meals. The others cut every conceivable corner.

Cheap, nasty ingredients are packaged into ‘meals’, nuked in a microwave and served to patients lukewarm, if they’re lucky.

There are no NHS guidelines on what should be in them. The last consideration seems to be those who need nutrition to get well.

This has to stop. Money is tight everywhere. But the Government must fund nothing short of a revolution in what hospitals feed their patients.

20th May 2012
The Sun