Two potatoes and seven cubes of tuna: The bad hospital food ‘hampering’ patients’ recovery

KWhen Jules Stephenson was hospitalized, she thought her recovery would be slow but easy. The last thing he expected was for the food served to him in the ward to disrupt this situation.

“I was very surprised at how bad the food was. It wasn’t appetizing,” he says. “I tried the jacket potato, it was cold. Then I tried the chicken and potato pie, but the oil immediately put me off. The fish was undercooked.”

“It was the same menu every day for lunch and dinner. I mostly just ate cheese and crackers unless my parents brought me something.”

Ms Stephenson says she did not finish a hot meal during her nearly eight-week hospital stay.

“Except for breakfast, that is, because I didn’t want to make myself sick. I think there were too many complaints about the food. Even the nurses said complain.”

The 50-year-old man from Tyne and Wear believes his health will improve more quickly with better nutrition. “I always had no appetite. One nurse even told me, ‘I feel bad giving you these meals.'”

While in opposition in 2018, Labor promised new laws to tackle poor hospital meals with “mandatory minimum standards” after analysis found huge differences in food spending.

But eight years later, Ms Stephenson and other patients say poor quality food is hindering their progress and causing longer recovery times.

Kitchens often have difficulty accommodating special diets needed for medical reasons, and many patients rely on family members to get food.

Meanwhile, rejected meals mean huge amounts of food wasted, costing some NHS trusts tens of thousands of pounds each year.

Latest figures show a total of £1.7 million worth of food is thrown away annually on the NHS in England.

The amount disposed of by trusts increased by 8.5 per cent from 9,300 tonnes in 2022-23 to 10,100 tonnes in 2023-24.

Five years ago, NHS chefs launched the NHS Chef program to raise food standards through training and competitions for caterers, and the following year all NHS organizations were given a set of food standards to aim for, including actively reducing food waste.

But NHS England statistics show that over the next two years the cost of uneaten meals rises by £600,000, or 13.6 per cent, from £1.1 million in 2021-22 to an estimated value of £1.5 million in 2022-23 and £1.7 million in 2023-24.

Patients told Independent The food they ate in the hospital was soggy, starchy, soft or rubbery, and there was not enough food for people with special needs, especially when the meals were not prepared on site.

Laura Abernethy, a 33-year-old writer from London, said the lack of quality nutrition had a huge impact on her health while she was in hospital to give birth to her son.

“I ate very boring, carbohydrate-heavy foods with little nutritional value, and I felt much worse,” she said.

“I have an intolerance to tomatoes and whenever I asked if something contained tomatoes I was told they didn’t know and couldn’t check because it ‘came from the central kitchen’.

“Most of the time, I opted for jacket potatoes with cheese because it was safe. The food itself wasn’t very nutritious, but it was mostly edible.”

Ms Abernethy said: “You had the option of fruit or low-fat yoghurt at every meal but they wouldn’t let me have either. It seemed crazy to restrict healthy foods while I was trying to recover in hospital.”

Experts say around half of hospitals in the UK outsource food preparation, and meals fare better when hospitals employ catering staff directly.

Nutrition consultant Kate Arnold, from East Sussex, said: “Food waste in the NHS is astronomical, but is it any wonder that food quality, apart from food safety and calorie content, is given zero attention?

“When you serve ultra-processed beige batter, we can’t expect clean plates. Good food not only helps morale, it can also help save the NHS money with faster recoveries and quicker patient returns.

“In 30 years as a nutritionist, I’ve seen very little change, and it’s crazy to continue down this path. Food needs to be consistently good to stop waste.”

Meals should include more vegetables and soups made from scratch, he said.

When Nikki Knight’s eight-year-old son Toby was hospitalized twice with leukemia, he found the food unappetizing and relied on snacks and takeaways from his parents.

He said the lasagna was dry and burnt, the ground beef was greasy, the mashed potatoes were rubbery and the pork was dry even though it was in sauce. He claimed that sometimes staff forgot to bring the food trolley to his ward.

“Toby was delighted when he was transferred to Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital because the pediatric oncology ward has a kitchen where children can choose what they want,” Ms Knight said.

Groups dedicated to NHS food quality on social media are full of photos of bland, sloppy meals or small portions. A woman posted a photo of a single-skinned potato with no filling or garnish served to her daughter.

However, some foundations report a decrease in the number of uneaten meals this year.

Claire Hill, a kitchen painter from Somerset who spent three nights at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton in October, said her experience was very good. “I was really impressed; there was so much choice and it was appetizing,” he said.

And it’s not just England and Wales. Tina Mur says she lost weight while in hospital in Scotland because hospitals did not provide appropriate healthy food for stoma patients, so she had to rebuild herself when she returned home.

“I’ve seen a lot of food go to waste because it’s too soft, rubbery, and reheated too much.

“Fry bread is a running joke on the wards – it’s either only fried on one side or left covered in foil so it’s soggy and rubbery. Standard processed white bread. I don’t eat processed or over-processed sweets filled with corn and sugar.”

He also asks his family and friends to bring him food.

Throwing away food wastes water and creates unnecessary greenhouse gases, according to the Waste and Resources Action Programme, which states that every NHS patient produces half a kilo of waste food every week.

NHS England encourages Staff try to prevent food waste by saying that the carbon emissions created during growing, transporting and preparing food are wasted by throwing it away.

“Inedible food also has no nutritional value and does not support the patient’s recovery,” he says.

But patients with special needs often say their needs are not being met.

When celiac patient Amy Appleby was hospitalized for treatment for skin cancer, she went hungry because there were no gluten-free options, and other patients were given “rubbery” cheese sandwiches made from white bread.

Ms Appleby, who runs a holistic health business in London, said fresh, healthy food was crucial to patients’ mental and physical recovery.

Total food waste in NHS England increased from 8,500 tonnes in 2021-22 to an estimated 9,300 tonnes in 2022-23 and 10,100 tonnes in 2023-24.

An NHS spokesperson said: “All patients and staff deserve quality food from hospitals, and the NHS is working with its partners to ensure the food on offer is nutritious and diverse, while also reducing food waste by improving waste tracking, providing better systems for patients and staff to order meals, and improving the quality and standard of meals through the NHS Chef initiative.”