The government has been accused of exaggerating the quality of hospital food, as it was revealed that fewer patient meals meet the standards set for prison food than is claimed by the Department of Health.
In November this year the Department of Health claimed that half of patient meals meet Government Buying Standards, which are mandatory for food served in government departments and prisons, but which are voluntary for hospitals. The government has rejected calls to make the standards mandatory for patient meals, claiming that half of hospitals are already voluntarily adopting them.
1 in 3 Hospital Trusts failing to meet basic mandatory criteria
However, an investigation by the Campaign for Better Hospital Food found that at least 1 in every 3 Hospital Trusts which claim to be compliant with Government Buying Standards are failing to meet one of its most basic mandatory criteria, which is that half of tea and coffee bought for patients is fairly traded.
Affront to hospital patients and their families
Alex Jackson, Co-ordinator of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, said: “We’ve had enough of the government using poor excuses and fiddled figures to justify why it won’t introduce mandatory quality standards for patient meals. Their refusal to do this is appalling and inexplicable, and is an affront to thousands of hospital patients and to their families.
“Ministers must be living on another planet if they think it’s acceptable to set standards to improve meals served to prisoners, but not to sick patients”.
Standards to improve healthiness and production of meals
Government Buying Standards also include criteria to improve the healthiness of meals and the standard of their production. For example, the standards limit the amount of saturated fat and salt in meals and require that a minimum amount of food meets higher standards of production, including organic certification, and that fish is proven to be sustainable.
Ninety eight organisations supporting the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, including the Royal College of Physicians, British Heart Foundation and the Patients Association, are calling on the government to support the Health and Social Care (Amendment) (Food Standards) Bill which has been introduced to Parliament by Baroness Cumberlege, and would improve all patient meals by requiring them to meet mandatory quality, nutritional and environmental standards.
Notes
In October 2013, the Department of Health published the results of its Patient Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) which showed that half of hospitals in England are fully compliant with Government Buying Standards (GBS). This includes both NHS and private hospitals.
This year the Campaign for Better Hospital Food sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to 247 NHS Hospital Trusts in England to find out how much of the tea and coffee they buy is certified to be fair trade e.g. meets Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance standards. This criteria was chosen as a simple way of checking their compliance to GBS, which stipulate that half of tea and coffee purchased must be fair trade.
The FOI results show that 11 of the 30 NHS Trusts which stated that all of their hospitals are compliant with GBS in their PLACE returns are failing to meet the fair trade criteria and are therefore not compliant with GBS in practice. A list of the 11 Trusts is attached to the email which you will have received with this press release.