“The HCA has been instrumental, behind the scenes, in persuading the Government of the necessity for a task force to overhaul hospital food, to look at ways to establish a consistent food quality and to look at how improvements can be made to ward service.
“Part of the panel’s remit will be all of the other key issues such as protected meal times, local procurement, menus to suit different patient groups and hydration that the HCA has been championing for some time.
“Nutritious and wholesome food is the simplest and best form of medicine and the therapeutic role of food within the healing process should never be under-estimated.”
But he added that this obviously did not rule out the use of nutritional supplements where appropriate.
“It is important that any nutritional care is administered with full regard to the individual patient’s health and wellbeing needs.
“The use of supplements cover a very broad spectrum of patient nutritional care requirements and there is strong clinical evidence that for those patients who really do need them to sustain life, they are appropriate and beneficial.”
His comments followed the introduction last week into the House of Lords by Lady Cumberlege of a new Hospital Food Bill that would set mandatory quality standards.
The Campaign for Better Hospital Food (co-ordinated by Sustain) recently released figures that showed the NHS spent more than £300m on nutritional supplements in 2012, a figure which was more than the organisation’s total spend on food.
Jones warned: “Some take the prescribing of supplements as an easy option to combat the likes of malnutrition without even looking at food being the real and key solution to the issue.
“Within the product spend figures released by the Better Hospital Food Campaign, a wide number of the products are prescribed by dietitians and clinicians based on sound medical reasons that supports the patient’s recovery plan i.e. gluten free products
“With many NHS Trusts spending millions on food supplements every year, one solution to saving money in the NHS lies in applying common sense solutions and by altering attitudes toward catering services and food at all levels.
“But, above all, allowing patients and caterers to lead on the whole service.”