Hospitals: Food

(asked on 23rd January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what metrics he plans to use to measure the effectiveness of improvements to food for hospital staff; and what assessment he has made of the quality of current food offering for hospital staff.


Answered by
Neil O'Brien Portrait
Neil O'Brien
This question was answered on 2nd February 2023

We know the importance of quality, nutritious hospital food to aid a patient’s recovery. The Independent Review of Hospital Food, published in October 2020, included an assessment of hospital food. This is why a three-year plan named ‘Great Food, Good Health’, led by NHS England, is underway to implement the recommendations from the Review with the aim to improve hospital food, as well as picking up on the existing food agenda in the NHS Long Term Plan and the Greener NHS Plan. NHS England has established an Expert Advisory Group, made up of clinicians, dietitians, and caterers to take forward the implementation of recommendations from the Independent Review of Hospital Food. In addition, NHS England now have a National Dietitian and a National Development Chef to support this work.

As part of this work, NHS England published updated NHS Food Standards on the 3 November 2022 and they are considering the best way to measure the effectiveness of improvements as a result of those standards.

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