Jeremy Hunt has been accused of failing to deliver his promised revolution in hospital food after the health secretary’s own department found that many hospitals have still not improved patient catering.
A Department of Health study shows that almost half of hospitals in England have failed to implement key improvements almost two and a half years after Hunt’s crackdown.
The disclosure led food campaigners to claim that supposedly legally binding duties put on hospitals in 2014 to serve healthier food and check if patients were malnourished had come to nothing.
At the time Hunt claimed his new hospital food standards would force NHS trusts to offer patients fresh fruit around the clock and cut the amount of salt in meals or risk being fined or losing contracts to deliver vital care.
“These figures from the government’s own research show the widespread failure in England to drive up food standards in hospitals. We can see from the report that almost half of all hospitals are not meeting the government’s own standards on hospital food,” said Katherine Button of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food.
The DH research, titled “Compliance with hospital food standards in the NHS. Two years on: a review of progress since the Hospital Food Standards Panel report in 2014”, found widespread breaches of what were meant to be mandatory standards that all should meet.
• 48% of hospitals are still not meeting government buying standards that oblige them to meet a range of standards regulating the quality, nutritional value and ethical sourcing of the food they serve patients, staff and visitors.
• While over half of all hospitals had by last year begun assessing the nutritional needs of every patient in order to detect and avoid malnutrition, an unspecified substantial minority still had not.
• Only 55% of hospitals have fully complied with the British Dietetic Association’s nutrition and hydration digest, a toolkit designed to help hospitals ensure patients receive nutritious meals that meet their dietary requirements.
Katharine Jenner, the campaign director of Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health, said: “This is more evidence that voluntary measures don’t work, even when they are dressed up as ‘legally binding’ in NHS standard contracts for hospitals. We need mandatory standards, with rigorous monitoring, reporting and meaningful sanctions for non-compliance.”
Button said she feared that hospitals’ push to overhaul their food may have been hampered by NHS-wide cost-cutting. “It seems that this well-intentioned drive to increase standards has fallen victim to budget cuts in catering departments and kitchens across the country.”
The DH insisted that its research painted a much more positive picture of progress made since Hunt unveiled the new standards to widespread acclaim in August 2014. It also shows, for example, that 96% of hospitals are either already compliant with the 10 key characteristics of good nutritional care or working towards that goal.
A spokeswoman said: “Every patient deserves nutritious food when they are in hospital which is why we introduced the first ever legally binding food standards in the history of the NHS. We can now see that over 90% of hospitals are compliant or actively working towards compliance with food standards and food is rated good in nine out of 10 hospitals.”
Jeremy Hunt"s hospital food revolution has failed, campaigners say
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