The Department of Health confirmed that all NHS trusts are required to develop a food and drink strategy from next year and announced the development of a new framework for improving staff and visitor food.
Dr Michael Dixon, advisor to NHS Clinical Commissioners, said: “The food we offer is often the first sight a patient or visitor gets of whether a hospital is good in other respects. Food and medical care must not be separated; food is medicine, the food we offer is part of our treatment – I urge all our commissioners to embrace the hospital food CQUIN and make good food part of what we do”.
Tom Barter, head of retail, ISS Healthcare, said: “We will achieve Catering Mark bronze across our staff and visitor restaurants by the end of 2015, cost is not a barrier, food is vital for patient recovery, and it’s caterers’ responsibility to deliver good food in hospitals across the country.”
Hospitals now receive a financial incentive for taking steps to improve the food served to patients, visitors and staff through the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) payment framework. The Department of Health’s Hospital Food Standard’s panel recognised the Soil Association’s Food for Life Catering Mark as an effective way to raise hospital food standards and achieve a CQUIN goal.
Hospitals nationally serve 300 million meals to patients each year, spending £500 million on food annually across approximately 1,200 hospitals. Diet-related ill-health costs the NHS £5.8 billion a year and the cost to the wider economy is expected to rise to £50 billion a year by 2050.