Hospital food
Monday, 17 Dec 2007 11:17
Some healthcare workers said they would not eat the food offered to patients
Despite claims that hospital food is improving a new study suggests patients are still not satisfied with the food on offer.
When the consumer watchdog Which? asked 1,000 people who had recently been in hospital about their food, one in three said they were unhappy with what they were given.
A quarter thought the food was so bad that they brought their own food in or asked their friends and family to.
Complaints about the food included portions being too small and meals being not being matched to times when the patients were able to eat or wanted to eat.
Even staff appear unable to stomach hospital food, as the survey found that one in five would not be happy eating the food offered to patients.
Which? claims that hospital food is not getting any better and is calling for a greater emphasis to be placed on patient satisfaction.
But the government says food has "improved greatly" over the last few years, pointing to a 2006 study by Patient Environment Action Teams that found 90 per cent of hospitals were rated 'good' or 'excellent' for food standards compared to 17 per cent in 2002.
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