Hospital Food - Reality Check!

I was unsure if I should write this as the Co-founder of Kafoodle, however, I feel my professional work allows me the knowledge to speak about a recent incident in a practical way.

I want to make it clear that I have met and continue to work with numerous people in the healthcare profession whom I have a lot of admiration for, including dietitians, chefs, nurses who are all working incredibly hard during challenging times. However, once again a recent personal experience has been very frustrating and I feel at odds with what is going on. As many of you will know the Hospital Food Review has recently been released with suggestions on how we can improve hospital food and patient experience as well as highlighting some of the great work kitchen teams do in Hospitals.

My recent experience has highlighted that despite what the report might say, in 2020 there are still healthcare establishments doing things very badly. I once again have a relative in hospital, whom for an extended period of time (8 weeks to be precise) is being served sandwiches for dinner. The menu rotates every two days and for Friday night dinner her options are as follows:

·       Shepherds Pie

·       Cheese and onion pastie

·       Soya Bolognaise

·       Egg Salad

·       Cheese Sandwich

·       Tuna Mayo sandwich

To be clear, this was the same menu for Monday and Wednesday without changing. The individual is diabetic and it took the hospital dietitian 3 weeks to come and speak to her re the menu. I have always provided my support for healthcare providers and am regularly on social media speaking about the great work they are doing but today I am beyond frustrated. How is this allowed to happen? How does this still happen? There are, as I know personally, so many simple solutions to improve patient experience/outcomes yet we seem to be so far behind.

My relative is terminally ill and on top of that just tested positive for COVID-19 after 8 weeks in hospital including 4 weeks in an isolation ward, she has had no visitors and even had to ‘bribe’ a nurse to get her some food from M&S. It was her birthday last week, and I was lucky enough to be allowed to arrange for a care package to be delivered to her to cheer her up.

I know my story is not unique and so many people are experiencing very similar situations, but I just cannot believe we are not improving at a faster pace and we appear to be seeing the same issues re-surface time and time again.