Prison food is better than food in NHS hospitals

Prison food is better than the food in NHS hospitals, as the BBC reports here. I don't think many hospital patients will be surprised at this research finding by Bournemouth University academics. Many patients get their families to take in food for them as they are not keen on the hospital meals.

I was particularly interested to read that prison food is lower in salt than hospital food. When I spent an appalling month in the Northern General Hospital in 2007 I was shocked at how high in salt the meals were, when you consider that the health service is continually exhorting the public to eat less salt. In addition to the meals being so high in salt (e.g. a ham sandwich: both ham and bread are high in salt and the butter was also salted), tiny individual packets of salt were given out routinely with every meal. You would never guess from those hospital meals that the government and their agencies have a policy aimed at lowering the average consumption of salt. - Policy and practice are not going hand in hand.

As a steroid victim I am extremely sensitive to salt and need to avoid it much more assiduously than most people. Incredibly, only one of the many doctors I encountered in the hospital knew that steroid victims needed to eat food with no added salt, and it proved impossible in practice for me to have meals with no added salt, very largely because of the unhelpfulness of the chief dietician, who persisted in claiming, falsely, that the meals provided were low in salt. Since it is harmful and dangerous for me to eat salty food, and as I had no family to visit and bring me suitable food, I was unable to eat much apart from breakfast, when I was able to choose porridge, a food that does not contain added salt.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

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Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

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Sodium in foods

NHS hospitals are throwing away as much as half of their food

Hospitals throw away 13m meals

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph:

"Close to 13 million meals were thrown away last year, with 33 hospitals dumping more than a quarter of their food, including two that discarded more than was eaten.

Meanwhile, almost 140,000 patients left hospital malnourished, double the figure a decade ago.

Last year, Ivan Lewis, the health minister, admitted that many elderly people were in effect being starved in hospitals. He said that some were given a single scoop of mashed potato as a meal, while others were "tortured" with trays of food placed beyond their reach and no help with eating.

Now figures uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph show dozens of hospitals in England and Wales throwing away more than a quarter of their meals untouched. At Leeds General Infirmary, 55 per cent of meals are thrown away, while 53 per cent at nearby St James' University Hospital end up in the bin.

Their "cook-chill" convenience food is prepared at a factory in South Wales before being driven 220 miles to be "regenerated" on hospital ward kitchens in Yorkshire."

The meals I had in the Sheffield Northern General Hospital as a patient last year were mostly very poor. And almost all meal choices were high in salt, despite the head dietician's claims to the contrary...)o: As a steroid victim I must avoid salt and salty food. This meant that much of the time in the hospital I had very little to eat. My salt problem was not taken seriously and most of the kitchen staff were unaware that the meals they provided were high in salt.


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
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Criticism of nutrition in hospital

Patients leave hospital malnourished
article in the Telegraph

Patients are left to starve on NHS wards...

Patients left to starve on NHS wards

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"The number released from hospital suffering from malnutrition, nutritional anaemia, or other nutritional deficiencies has risen by 84 per cent in the decade since Labour came to power, from 74,431 in 1997 to 139,127."

"The worst area in the country for malnutrition was the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust in Greater Manchester, where 4,947 patients were discharged suffering malnourishment, followed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, with 2,771, and the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

They were among nearly 50 hospital trusts around the country that discharged more than 1,000 malnourished patients last year.

Meanwhile, it is estimated that the poor quality of hospital food is putting patients off to the extent that 13 million meals are thrown away each year, at an average cost of £2.65 each.

Last year, the health minister Ivan Lewis admitted patients were being starved on wards, with some elderly people given little more than a scoop of mashed potato for lunch.

Others were "tortured" by having meal trays placed out of reach, which they were too weak to pull towards them."

When I was in hospital (Northern General Hospital, Sheffield) for a month last summer, my main complaint about the food was the high salt content of most of the meal choices. - As a steroid victim I need to avoid eating salt and salty food, so I had to rely on friends bringing me food that I could eat.

NHS hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals.

Patients 'revolted' by NHS food

Extract from the Observer article:

"Hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals, according to a survey by the consumer organisation Which?

The new research reveals that some hospitals are offering many of the 13 million people admitted every year unhealthy food, portions that are too small and cold meals in the evening. Patients' other complaints include being served meals at inconvenient times and failure by hospitals to cater for people with special diets, such as diabetics and the overweight.

Michael Summers, a vice-chairman of the Patients' Association, said the quality of hospital food had improved until many hospitals began running up deficits. 'There had been quite a decent variety of food, people given menus the night before and the temperature of the food was taken. But cutbacks by hospitals have had a terrible effect,' said Summers. 'It's quite common now for hospital food to be sub-standard.'

Some of the 3,000 patients interviewed described the food they had been served as 'repulsive' or 'a disgrace'. One had been given a pie and chips despite struggling to drink because of tonsillitis; another was given sandwiches for dinner.

After interviewing 250 doctors, nurses and other NHS personnel, Which? also found that one in five hospital staff would turn their nose up at food served to patients. 'We are extremely concerned that hospital food is still of such poor quality that just a third of people feel they're getting the food they need to get better, and that one in four thinks it's so bad they have to make alternative arrangements,' said Clare Corbett, a health campaigner with Which?"

I found the meals provided while I was an in-patient in the Northern General Hospital Sheffield in the summer were very poor and I had to get friends to bring me in unsalted protein food and extra fruit. Most of the hospital meals were high in salt despite the Chief Dietician's claims to the contrary...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

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