Hospital food: can you offer more choice and cut waste?

The Better Hospital Food programme's goal to extend menu choice appears to be in conflict with the need to reduce food waste, it emerged at the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA) conference in Brighton last week.

In a video speech, Lord Warner, undersecretary of state for health, urged delegates to do more to tackle hospital food waste, which costs £18m a year, or £55,000 per NHS trust.

But a number of catering managers at the conference said the Government's drive to give patients a greater menu choice, including the mandatory Leading Chef dishes, actually increased the amount of wasted food.

The Department of Health's website says hospitals should make at least two of the 46 Leading Chef dishes available each day. These include dishes such as plaice, salmon and prawn seafood pasta with fresh dill and Parmesan, or pear and chocolate crumble with chocolate sauce or toffee yogurt.

One manager, who didn't wish to be named, said: "The majority of our patients are over 60, frail, and in a confused state. They haven't got the strength to try something new and unfamiliar. They want simple British recipes, comfort food that they ate as children."

A joint NHS and HCA guidance document on the management of food waste will be published this summer. The guide says waste can occur at all stages in the service process, caused by meals not being eaten or too many meals being produced.

Warner admitted that a certain amount of waste was inevitable, but he described the quantity of food wasted in one hospital he visited as "astonishing".