There was a piece on BBC Breakfast this morning (and on the BBC news web site) about how City Hospital and the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham have switchred to using fresh local food. The story said that not only were they supporting local farmers they were saving the health trust around £6m a year.
I have sampled too much hospital food over the last few years and frankly it is, to be polite, ‘not fit for purpose’. A lot of hospitals use cook-chill meals that are sourced from large production lines and then trucked to the hospital where they are reheated as required. I often thought about the nutritional content of such food whilst trying to force down sub-standard slop. Sorry but that is what it often looked and tasted like and is not what anybody in hospital wants.
The move to ‘home cooked’ local food in Nottingham is being hailed as a major innovative project and has even won an award from the Soil Association. That is great but I have to ask if maybe it is just plain old common sense? To invoke a much over used phrase it is a win win situation. Patients get real nutritious food, the health trust saves a pot of money, the local economy gains AND 150,000 food miles are saved.
My only questions are: 1) why has it taken so long? 2) Why are more hospitals, schools and other public bodies not doing the same? And 3) Why is it not a huge political imperative for the new government as it ‘ticks all the boxes’ in terms of saving money, stimulating the local economy, reducing imports and valuing people?
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