"We must maintain the momentum"
What are your priorities as president of the HCA?
I've had a long-standing interest in how we can improve catering in the health service and want to work with the HCA to develop links with the Government and the Department of Health to get the good food message across at the highest level.
What did you learn as health minister that you can use in the HCA role?
I learnt you can sit in Whitehall and issue as many edicts as you like but it's very difficult to get the NHS to change. It's a huge organisation, made up of 1.2 million employees, and food and catering are a low priority. Whatever is decided at the centre, getting individual NHS organisations to take food seriously is a hard thing to achieve.
Why is good food important in the NHS?
The NHS is in the business of offering a first-class service to every patient. Good food, served appropriately, is part of that service and essential to speedy patient recovery.
Traditionally, the Health Service has regarded food as a marginal extra. There was no passion about it. But if you ask patients, who often have to sit around for hours on end, food is one of the things they look forward to.
Many patients also enter hospital undernourished, and unfortunately many leave in the same way. We must use the time they are in hospital to get them to eat good food and to encourage them to think about a nutritious diet when they leave.
The great challenge is to get the NHS to realise that catering isn't a back-office function that you begrudge spending money on. It's integral to providing a top-quality service.
How close are we to achieving this?
There has been a lot of progress in the past few years.
The Better Hospital Food Programme, championed by Loyd Grossman, has directed the spotlight towards hospital food, while the development of protected mealtimes will ensure food is given a priority among all the hurly-burly of a hospital's daily routine.
So we are on a roll, but this is where the HCA has an important part to play. Individual NHS trusts cannot be complacent. Whatever the financial pressure on them, it's a false economy to squeeze catering budgets.
How does the issue of patient choice affect hospital food?
Giving patients more say in the hospital they go to is the way the Health Service is going.
This will be decided by a number of factors, including a hospital's reputation. And the quality of food served has a big part to play in forming a hospital's reputation.
As hospitals realise that patients are making this choice, I hope trusts will reappraise their attitude to food.
What can catering managers do to influence senior mangers in the NHS?
I want to encourage HCA member to be more influential and be able to engage senior managers at a local and national level. If you think of all the pressures that hospital managers are under, it's not surprising food gets pushed to the back of the list of priorities.
The HCA has a role to play in helping our members to develop themselves to do this better
I would like to see the introduction of courses for catering managers teaching them relevant "influencing" skills. Up to now, their main emphasis has been the patient, but dealing with managers is vital if food is to be pushed up the agenda.We need to look at the careers and qualifications of catering managers.
Are influencing skills part of these qualifications?
At the bottom of this issue is the question: "Are we attracting the right people to the profession?" We need to look at what's happening to catering managers throughout their careers. How many go on to be facilities managers or even general managers? If the answer is not many, I'd like to know why this is.
Can you see the current debate about school dinners affecting the public's attitude to hospital food?
The school dinner debate helps us. Like schools, hospital trusts know they can't ignore food now. They are aware of the negative publicity that might arise, so food quality and budgets are more likely to be on the agenda at a high level.
To a certain extent we have already had our Jamie Oliver effect with Loyd Grossman. He has been a fantastic champion for the Better Hospital Food programme and despite getting a lot of flak from the media when he was first appointed, he has stuck to his task and has never charged the NHS a penny for his time. The quality of the food has improved and patients are more satisfied. I would say we are six years ahead of where schools are.
The argument has been won, but now we must maintain the momentum and stop the NHS doing what it is prone to do and slipping back to where it was. At this moment, we can either move forward or fall back - there is no standing still.
BOXTEXT: Lord Philip Hunt
Lord Hunt was a member of the Labour Government for five years from 1998 to 2003, during which time he served four years as health minister.
He was appointed life peer in July 1997 and his particular interests in the House of Lords are health, education, transport and cultural issues. He was awarded the OBE in 1993.
He has extensive experience in the health field and has held a number of senior positions, including chief executive of the NHS Confederation (1996-97) and chair of the Institute of Public Policy Research Forum of the Future of Health and Healthcare (1997-98).
He is currently a senior policy adviser at the King's Fund, chair of the National Patient Safety Agency and a senior associate fellow at the Warwick University Business School.
