Alex Jackson, co-ordinator of Sustain’s Campaign for Better Hospital Food, said: “From the outset, I was dismayed that health minister Dan Poulter prohibited the Hospital Food Standards Panel from even considering the introduction of legally-binding standards for patient meals, if it saw fit to do so.
“Making this recommendation would have been the real breakthrough after 20 years of failed government voluntary initiatives to improve food for some of the most vulnerable people that government provides meals for.
“My concerns about the restrictions placed on the panel have grown in recent weeks after it emerged that the government is actively looking to improve existing mandatory standards for food served to civil servants, prison inmates and members of the armed forces, and also potentially for schoolchildren. But not for hospital patients.”
Andy Jones, chairman of the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA) responded: “As one of the members of the Hospital Food Standards Panel, the HCA fully supports its terms of reference.
“However, as the formation of the panel was only announced last November and its members have only met three times, it is still far too early in the process for anyone to pre-empt its recommendations.
“The HCA is campaigning for mandatory standards similar to those within NHS Scotland and Wales, which are making a difference to the nutritional quality of meals for their respective patient groups.
“In the meantime, although not currently mandatory, the British Dietetic Association (BDA) recommended standards are being followed by hospital caterers within NHS England.
“In order to meet the needs of the local community and differing patient groups, the HCA agrees with the Government’s principle that local patients and NHS Trusts should drive their own menus and food choices but with the menus and nutritional content checked by dietitians to ensure they comply with the BDA standards and are reflective of the standards applied in the other countries.”
Jackson added: “Having seen over 20 voluntary government initiatives fail to improve hospital over the past two decades at a cost of over £50m to the taxpayer, I cannot in all good conscience continue to support yet another voluntary initiative, which I have every reason to believe will be ineffective.
“The Department of Health must recognise its responsibility to hospital patients and apply legally-binding standards for hospital food.
“It could easily have achieved this by supporting Lady Cumberlege’s Hospital Food Bill, which would have introduced legally-binding standards for hospital food for the first time but, staggeringly, it chose not to do so.”