…While HCA counsels caution at hospitals
The Hospital Caterers Association (HCA) described the findings of a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary broadcast last week, which showed staff at Tillery Valley Foods breaching hygiene regulations, as "extremely disturbing".
The programme secretly filmed staff at the Sodexho-owned company food production plant in Gwent over six weeks. They were shown eating food from the production line, handling it without surgical gloves, throwing it, and sneezing into it.
Tillery Valley Foods is one of the largest producers of hospital food in the UK.
In a statement, the HCA strongly urged individual NHS Trusts to look closely at their food purchasing sources and to satisfy themselves that they were happy with the service.
"Where hospital caterers employ cook-chill methods of food production, they have to be reliant on the integrity of food suppliers," said the statement. "They have to have total confidence that prepared meals supplied to hospitals under national contracts are from safe supply sources."
The programme also brought to light concerns about the nutritional value of cook-chill meals, which are reheated at extremely high temperatures. But HCA chair Alison McCree said it was not the cook-chill method that was at fault, but the lack of management controls and supervision portrayed in the film.
"If the system is followed correctly, there shouldn't be a problem with the quality of the food," she said, and added that the programme also featured excellent examples of hospital catering at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, and at Solihull Hospital, Warwickshire, which uses the cook-chill system.
Both Channel 4 and the HCA stressed that regeneration of food at high temperatures would make it safe for consumption. McCree believed the documentary did not portray common practice and added: "A lot of good has come out of the Better Hospital Food programme and we don't want to cast a shadow over that."
The Department of Health denied that the programme would damage relationships between the NHS and private contractors.
A spokeswoman said: "We continue to believe that the private sector has much to offer the NHS in terms of expertise, product research, innovation and customer service skills, and these can best be deployed through enduring, trusting and open partnerships."
