Soldato
I think your example of 'better' sums up how seriously your post should be considered.
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NHS=Negligent Health Service
- Thread starter 1664kronenbourg
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Man of Honour
From that article:
To compound my anxiety, a friend whose (Japanese) father stayed in the same hospital told me that the food was so bad it caused him to angrily complain about it to the nurses.
and looking at those pictures it looks bloody awful
Associate
You need to understand this is what 90 % of people eat for dinner in the UK and think its a good meal.
So giving it in a hospital just reflects what they eat at home.They only know what they know.
In our home we have different types of salads 5 times a week with different vegetables.
We hardly ever have chips, we mostly eat boiled new potatoes or mash potatoes ( boiled potatoes using real potatoes).
We have peas,asparagus, carrots broccoli etc.. never frozen.
Or we make are own ratatouille etc...
Soldato
During my last hospital stay, the food wasn't actually that bad - it was certainly palatable, of course nothing to write home about; but always a bit of choice and it certainly helped get me back on my feet
Your duvet must be like a magic carpet overnight!
Soldato
In Leicester Royal Infirmary - if go at late lunch onwards, see Deliveroo etc couriers in the lifts area. Studying the floor plan which floor the customer is on.
NHS seem to think that every patient has the appetite of a 93 year old. Plus some patients are nil by mouth for over 24 hours and are bloody starving
Soldato
Holy hyperbole, Batman. They're hungry, not starving.
Looks like a kids portion and that meal reflects someone's left overs that have been sat for 2 days and reheated with hot plates or whatever.
The fish looks like someone already left a hand print on it from picking it up..
Hospitals don't cook on site and just outsource everything like schools?
Remember when places used to actually cook food, It can't be that expensive, the tories keep telling us people can survive on a pound a day or whatever with home cooking
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Man of Honour
I bet you see how much food is left even on small portions.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
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That's just a portion, probably small for a glutton who needs portions on top of portions like a multistorey car park though
9 chips though... its like they went the local chip shop and split a bag of chips between 5+ people
added 50grams of mixed vegetables and a sad looking fish thing with a hand print on it.
I bet most people barely touch them and get a takeaway or something brought in.
Don't know how old this stat is but
The 1297 NHS hospitals and 515 private hospitals produce 12% of the total food waste generated in the UK. That's 1.1 million tonnes of the total of 9.5 million tonnes.
Sounds like a lot of waste, probably cheaper to provide food people will eat?
a lot of the waste could be sandwhiches though, I've been in A&E before and seen nurses walking around with stacks of prepacked sandwhiches asking if anyone wants one.
probably stuff they can't sell or give away
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Commissario
And quite likely not the only thing supplied as the meal.
I know when my dad was in the portions of individual items tended to be "small", but there were also typically multiple things at once, three times a day and IIRC there were various notices up saying basically "if you're hungry or thirsty ask, food and drinks are available at all times" (albeit the food might just be a sandwich or biscuits at time), pretty much as common as the signs saying "If you are in pain please tell us" and "don't risk a fall, ask for help".
Not to mention a lot of people are really bad at estimating/understanding the nutritional value of their food, hence you get people dieting who don't realise the calories in drinks, or people that routinely fill their plate because "that's a portion" rather than having any idea of what the actual recommended portion size is (it can be amusing when you realise how many portions something is meant to be, vs how many you get out of it at "normal" portion size).
The funniest thing is, given some of the responses about needing dieticians, they're the ones who will have set the portion sizes for the specific food types most of the time basing it on what is needed nutritionally for the average person, what it costs and the difficulty of preparation and serving.
Man of Honour
Commissario
Or, and just maybe, people when ill often don't eat much, and those hospitals are probably one of the very few places that are both serving food that has had to be prepared in advance (no cooking it one or two portions at a time like a restaurant), and actually tracking how much food they've bought in, vs how much is thrown away.
They also normally have extremely strict controls on the food, so no "popping it in the fridge for tomorrow" once it's been out on the trolley to be served and they've found the patient who ordered it at 5pm the day before has left, and they've now got someone who really doesn't like the option chosen.
Hospitals don't have a fraction of the staff, or cooking space required to "provide what people will eat", let alone the budget for it given that everyone has different tastes and preferences and they cannot cook individual meals so they cook from "generally accepted" meal lists that are if anything deliberately generic because it's better to provide a meal that is "bland" than a meal that risks serious cross contamination, or that people won't eat because "the flavour is too strong".
Even your average restaurant doesn't "provide what people will eat", or rather they won't have something that every single person regardless of age, preferences or religious limits will eat and like, it's taken decades to get to the point where restaurants are actually aware of what allergens they have in their food, and that maybe a vegetarian option is a thing, and many still aren't good at it despite there being both legal and financial reasons to be.
And to be honest, the hospital food I've seen at my local one is at least on a par with a lot of the cheaper eateries (and some more expensive ones*), let alone the sort of food budget the hospitals have which is something like £4 per meal, that's barely the price of a Mcdonalds coffee and fries, and my local chippy charges at least £8 for a small fish and chips now, or the last time I had an "all day breakfast" at a pub it was something like a tenner (and i'm not sure they didn't microwave the bacon to heat it before frying it for 30 seconds)
*I had a fish and chips at an expensive one near me, at most there were about 20 chips, but they were presented really nicely which is the main thing.
Soldato
Everyday. But then we get some patients who thank us for taking them down for, say a scan, at mealtimes.
Caporegime
@Werewolf another thing being forgotten is people in hospital tend to need fewer calories as they're bed-bound or of limited mobility. Hence smaller portions again.
meal from my trust,
not sure about the boiled egg, never been a fan of them cold, but the fish is ok.
it's a lot better now it's back in house, when it was run by MITIE is looked much like the above with a few chips and fried "fish" blocks.
@Werewolf is right about calorific content being part of it. meals over the day are designed to provide just below the nominal intake for a person. They don't want to start making your weight a problem, and if you're in a bed all or most of the day you're not burning anything like you would in a normal day.
stacked on top of that people don't feel like eating a lot of the time so if they produced more for those who wanted a couple of portions then it would mean more waste and costs.
not sure about the boiled egg, never been a fan of them cold, but the fish is ok.
it's a lot better now it's back in house, when it was run by MITIE is looked much like the above with a few chips and fried "fish" blocks.
@Werewolf is right about calorific content being part of it. meals over the day are designed to provide just below the nominal intake for a person. They don't want to start making your weight a problem, and if you're in a bed all or most of the day you're not burning anything like you would in a normal day.
stacked on top of that people don't feel like eating a lot of the time so if they produced more for those who wanted a couple of portions then it would mean more waste and costs.