Starvation deaths may make NHS think again

A rash of high-profile court cases against health authorities that let patients starve to death would be an effective way to convince NHS managers food is a key part of treatment, a prominent nutritionist said last week.

Rick Wilson, director of nutrition and dietetics at King's College Hospital in London, said that, as a result of public consultation, providing better hospital food was in the top five things the NHS must do, but hospital chief executives and board members still needed to be won over.

Although 40% of patients are undernourished when admitted, doctors get very little training in nutrition, Wilson said. He added that treating malnutrition was an avoidable drain on hospitals' resources. King's College's annual budget of £280m includes £3m for food and £17m for drugs, with the priciest drugs such as antibiotics associated with poor nutrition.

"We fail to appreciate that food is cheap," he said. "If we treated malnutrition in the first place, we wouldn't have such a huge drugs bill."

Wilson said that lawyers were aware of the opportunity of taking malnutrition cases.

Following a salmonella outbreak in 1984 at Wakefield hospital, which killed 19 people, Crown immunity was lifted from hospitals, which have since had to insure themselves against the risk of legal action. Wilson said: "No one wants to be accused of starving people to death."

by Ben Walker

Source: Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine, 13-19 February 2003