Prison meals are better than hospital food

1st September 2009, 10:00am

People are far more likely to go hungry in an NHS hospital than in a prison, researchers have found.

This is despite prisons spending less per person on meals than hospitals do.

Experts from Bournemouth University have been studying the food offered to inmates and across the NHS.

They believe hospital patients face barriers in getting good nutrition, including not receiving assistance with eating and nobody monitoring if they are well fed.

Professor John Edwards said around 40% of patients going into hospital were already malnourished but this situation did not tend to improve while there.

"If you are in prison then the diet you get is extremely good in terms of nutritional content."

He continued: "There's a focus on carbohydrates, then there's the way they prepare the food, it's very healthy. They don't add salt and there's relatively little frying of food - if you have a burger then it goes in the oven.

"Hospital patients don't consume enough. If you are using food as a means of treatment then it's not working."

Related Articles:

• 07 Apr 2010 - Professor Tim Lang backs hospital food campaign
• 24 Mar 2010 - Raymond Blanc praises NHS hospital food
• 04 Jan 2010 - Government wastes over £50m on hospital food failure, says report
• 17 Sep 2009 - The RUH Bath increases sustainable produce on menus
• 03 Sep 2009 - Be careful when comparing prison and hospital food, says industry expert
• 14 May 2009 - 57% of patients rate hospital food as “very good”
• 13 Feb 2009 - NHS hospital patients sneak takeaways into wards
• 09 Oct 2008 - Hospital food waste investigated by BBC
• 25 Sep 2008 - Healthy eating on the menu for hospital staff
• 15 Jul 2008 - Hospital food rated excellent by watchdog
• 14 Jul 2008 - Hospital food is improving

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