Tim Radcliff, catering manager for East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, said: “The Trust is focused on improving the whole patient experience, and food plays a very important role in that. We are continually improving the food experience for everyone who uses our facilities, and for some time we have been working on enhancing our provisions for vegans.
"We are incredibly proud that Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital achieved the ‘Food for Life Served Here’ Bronze Award last summer. The independent endorsement demonstrates that we are serving freshly prepared high quality food that meets the needs and expectations of our patients, staff and visitors.
"An element of the award recognises the work the Trust has undertaken in reducing the amount of meat served in the hospital. It also supports the Catering Service’s ‘Meat Free Monday’, which has recently taken even further steps to exclude fish and cheese-based main meals; making it acceptable to our vegan customers.
"Unlike many hospital Catering Services, our menus now include vegan options such as quinoa with stir-fried veg and a Cajun spiced vegetable bean burger. In the near future these options are to be supplemented by a range of in-house prepared vegan salads that have been successfully trialled, including a roast cauliflower salad, falafel salad with aubergines (and chermoula yogurt provided separately) and a chickpea, nut and cranberry salad.”