Primarily I must apologise for the lack of posts over the past few months. The truth is that I have simply been far too busy to even turn around twice in a day and my ranting about food has had to take a back seat. However, I am back and a little bit cross.
A few weeks ago I was driving home to a pile of marking when, on the radio there was a report on the quality of Hospital food.
Hospital food, like Airline food has been the butt of jokes for generations and I understand that an NHS Hospital is not an hotel but there can be no excuse for feeding people who are poorly or recovering from operations poor food.
Just to reiterate, here's the logic path: People in hospitals are in need of care and cost the country a great deal of money. So, it is in everyone's interest (especially the patient's) that they get well quickly. So, in order to help this healing they should be fed high quality and appropriate nutrition. So, we should be supplying hospitals with fantastic cooks, producing great meals. So, the patient spends a shorter period of time in hospital. So, each patient is less costly to the exchequer.
To me this seems like the simplest equation in the world, though there are those who I am sure have much "bigger" brains than I who just do not see it. Several celebrity chefs have tried to make a difference in this area and whilst their efforts are to be applauded, the overall effect seems to be small.
Here comes the sadness - Most of the food production in hospitals is done by large. highly diversified companies who also tender for the cleaning contract, the waste disposal contract and other services to the hospital trust. Often these are rolled into one contract so supplying the nutrition to people who are trying to get better very quickly becomes a set of sums on a proposal (probably based on cost reduction) rather that a drive to improve the "wellness" of individuals.
If I were a senior medical professional I would probably be pulling out the last remnants of my hair at the fact that I was providing (by and large) first class healthcare with the handicap of poor nutrition.
It is high time that we stopped racing to the lowest cost with these issues and climbed our way to the highest benefit.
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