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DH launches new mandatory food standards for hospitals

Mandatory food standards will, for the first time, be included in NHS contracts, with hospitals rated for food quality on NHS Choices, under new plans announced by the health secretary.

The Hospital Food Standards Panel, led by Dianne Jeffrey, chairman of Age UK, has recommended a number of legally-binding food standards for the NHS, which will focus on quality, choice and promoting a healthy diet for patients and staff.

Under the new proposals, hospitals should screen patients for malnutrition and patients should have a food plan; hospitals must also take steps to ensure patients get the help they need to eat and drink.

On top of this, canteens must promote healthy diets for staff and visitors – with the food offered needing to comply with government recommendations on salt, saturated fats and sugar. And food must be sourced in a sustainable way so that it is healthy and good for individuals.

Complementing the new standards, the secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, has announced hospitals will, for the first time, be ranked on the NHS Choices website for the quality of their food. The latest patient inspections data has been published on NHS Choices and shows how each hospital performs on:

• Quality of food
• Choice of food
• Menu approved by a dietitian
• Fresh fruit always available
• Food available between meals
• Choice at breakfast
• Cost of food services per patient per day

Hunt said: “We are making the NHS more transparent, giving patients the power to compare food on wards and incentivising hospitals to raise their game. Many hospitals are already offering excellent food to their patients and staff.

“But we want to know that all patients have nourishing and appetising food to help them get well faster and stay healthy, which is why we’re introducing tough new mandatory standards for the first time ever.”

However, the Campaign for Better Hospital Food said the government is trying to “pull the wool over our eyes”.

Alex Jackson, the campaign's co-ordinator said: “We want to see hospital food standards set down in legislation, similarly to school food standards, and therefore universally applied to all hospitals and protected by publicly elected representatives for generations to come.

“But the government still refuses to do this and has only committed to including the standards in NHS commissioning contracts, which are long documents full of clauses that without proper enforcement and monitoring can be ignored by hospitals.

"The government may have inserted a new clause in a legal document, but that won't be what most people consider to be legally-binding. It's woefully inadequate.”

But the DH stated that hospitals that do not follow the guidance recommended by the panel would be in breach of their commissioning contract, and commissioners will be able to take contractual action against them.

The Care Quality Commission will also use a range of information, including the patient inspection data, to spot potential problems with food and to determine which hospitals need closer inspection of their food practices.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said: “It is time for the NHS set a clear example in providing healthier food for our patients, visitors and also our hardworking staff. That’s why NHS England has agreed to include hospital standards in the next NHS Contract, which will be published later this year.”

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