Hospital catering reforms 'hopelessly weak', says Prue Leith

Food writer says NHS catering contract changes due next month are ‘feeble’ and will not eradicate poor quality food and wastage in hospitals

The quality of hospital meals, such as tired, plastic-wrapped sandwiches and grey, mushy ready meals, has been described as a scandal by the food writer Prue Leith in an article for the Guardian, denouncing the government’s reform proposals as feeble and worth less than “a row of over-processed beans”.

Minimum food standards are to be introduced to NHS catering contracts from next month, but Leith accuses the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, of ducking the issue, and says that the hospital food standards panel established by the department has been undermined by inviting food manufacturers, including one of the biggest suppliers of hospital food, on to the panel.

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