I would like to comment on Hardeep’s article in the Epsom Guardian (Hospital Meals: Switch to a la carte means patients get a sandwich or salad option at dinner, March 19).

As far as the food at Epsom & St Helier Hospital (ESTH) is concerned I calculate that if the Hospital spent £1.06m in the last year and given that the Annual Report states that the hospital served 707,391 patient meals in 2013/14 then the average cost per meal was £1.50.  For three meals a day this works out to £4.50/day.  It would help to consider these figures in more detail in order understand the cost of each meal served (ie average cost of breakfast, lunch and evening meal separately and then adding up to provide an average food price per patient day).

Unfortunately the costing information provided in Hardeep's article was not sufficient to do this.  However, I am sure Daniel Elkeles understands that patients are in hospital to recover / get better as rapidly as possible and the food that is provided is part of the overall TLC recipe for getting better where every minute detail relating to the patient's care is so, so important. The cost of the food is a small part, of the overall cost per patient day.  But never the less the quality of the food that the patients receive is still very important! The hospital have already put an enormous amount of effort into patient food and how it is served.  This experience should not be discarded just because a new chief executive is now in charge.

Your readers  might not be aware of the work that James Martin did to improve hospital food while at the same time reducing the enormous amount of waste.  Using local suppliers and recipes where exact quantities were used and the instructions were followed to the letter. An article describing this work was originally published in the Good Housekeeping magazine entitled James Martin on Operation Hospital Food, written by Helen Glaberson and published on 18 February 2013. 

This article can be found on the internet by inputting James Martin Hospital Food.  The BBC1 programmes where Jams Martin took the viewers through the stages needed to improve hospital food in different hospitals are also available by inputting the same information.

Bob Mackison

via email