An independent survey into hospital food standards in England conducted earlier this year for the Soil Association saw over half of those patients surveyed admit they would not be happy serving the meals they received during a recent hospital stay to a child, while 29% said the food was so bad that, at times, they could not recognise what was on their plate.
Nearly of quarter of the 1,000 indviduals questioned by OnePoll, meanwhile, had opted out of hospital catering altogether – choosing to have every meal brought in to them by visiting relatives; nor, the Soil Association says, is enough English hospital food being locally or sustainably sourced. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports.
The disturbing conclusions on patient and staff perceptions above are highlighted in a Soil Association report, First Aid for Hospital Food, published earlier this year. The report draws both on the results of questioning of 1,000 individuals who had either stayed in hospitals themselves, or had a close relative in hospital, within the six months preceding the survey, and on in-depth research undertaken for the Soil Association in 2010 by independent researcher Liz Alford, for her report, Hospital Food Review: Sourcing more local and sustainable food, which examined both the quality of English hospital food, and how “sustainably” it is procured. Among the headline findings were:
• Over a third of respondents (35%) felt hospital food was “not acceptable”.
• Nearly two-thirds had had some food brought in during their hospital stay because they “didn’t like the meals being served”.
• Over two-thirds (68%) felt hospital food should be improved.
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