Should hospitals sell unhealthy food?

My friend is being treated at a London hospital. She speaks highly of the food offered.

Visgir1 I was thinking exactly this.
Sometimes you need comfort food - probably more so if you are working in a hospital or a regular visitor!

The nearest city hospital to us has an M&S Food, a newsagent and a clothes gift shop in the main entrance along with a large Costa.

The department which housed Mr C for a 8 days had its own cafe frequented by staff, visitors and also some patients sitting with their visitors. I was told the food there was better than the staff restaurant. Main meals were limited in range but hot and tasty. Healthy? Probably as healthy as the average pub meal. A large range of sandwiches, fruit, pre prepared salad and yoghurts along with cake and biscuits were available all day.

I can attest the cooked breakfast offering was good quality and just what an exhausted, worried visitor needed. It was recommended to me by the porter taking Mr C to theatre at 10am for a six hour operation. We’d arrived at 7am after an hours journey, I’d not eaten. Go and eat he said, your husband is in good hands. I went, I thought just to get a drink, saw the breakfasts and yes it was just the thing I needed to buck me up for a stressful drive on unfamiliar roads to family. I truly didn’t care whether it was healthy or not.

Mr C refused food for several days, when he began to eat I supplemented hospital meals with whatever he fancied that M&S sold. It mattered more that he ate than what he ate.

The meals offered to inpatients seemed balanced, hot and visually appealing. The problem was a fickle appetite and little energy even to make a choice. This particular hospital does its best, I’d not criticise them while being grateful for M&S as a top up. I knew Mr C had turned a corner the day he asked me if, after my lunch break, I could bring him a large cappuccino from Costa. It all has a place I think.

The tone of this thread is getting to me now.

What would people define as 'healthy' food? I think everyone would answer differently depending on their own diet and tastes.

What I'm sensing is posters just mean food I wouldn't eat at home, but hospital food isn't what you would eat at home- it is what they provide on a low budget trying to cater for different dietary needs with high standards of hygiene to prevent mass infections.

Try to imagine your favourite hotel being able to do this on a similar budget- it just wouldn't be possible.

People go into hospital for specialised medical care- not for the latest dietary fads.

The times I've been in hospital I was glad to get home in a healthier state than when I went in- the food was not my priority...

Our local hospital does really good inpatient food - saw it recently with a parent in hospital. Looking at the menus though, I wondered how I’d get on being diabetic - not sure I’d be catered for. The canteen also did a good variety of healthy food.

Esmay

Our local hospital provides a highly unsatisfactory diet for patients.
If you can't get to it -it's whisked away.

There's a Costa,which provides the usual fare and a hospital canteen ,which is often closed .
The shop which provided sandwiches , crisps and chocolates has been shut .
I spent about six hours in A and E prior to Christmas and getting a drink and a snack was very difficult particularly if alone .

That I can believe. I still feel guilty - from years back for when I was visiting my father in hospital one time and I could see a meal had just been dumped in front of another patient and off the person walked. The patient didnt start eating it and I kept trying to walk over from visiting my fathers bedside to help him and my father kept telling me not to !!!!!!! I should have ignored my fathers unreasonableness and done so and here I am over 10 years later still feeling bad at intervals that I didnt ignore my father on that and do so. It did stick a lot of holes in my opinion of my father - and loads of holes in my opinion of the hospital staff. I was gobsmacked someone could be treated that way - though goodness knows any food I ever saw anywhere in a hospital = self-restraint would have been required not to fling it at the nearest wall immediately, rather than eat it - as it looked so awful.

Our local hospital provides a highly unsatisfactory diet for patients.
If you can't get to it -it's whisked away.

There's a Costa,which provides the usual fare and a hospital canteen ,which is often closed .
The shop which provided sandwiches , crisps and chocolates has been shut .
I spent about six hours in A and E prior to Christmas and getting a drink and a snack was very difficult particularly if alone .

Sallywally1, our local hospital found that a lot of patients, particularly the elderly were leaving hospital suffering from malnutrition. The volunteer coordinator realised this and he recruited several volunteers as mealtime companions. They help patients opening sandwiches, yogurts etc and whatever else was required to help the patients have their food. The patients also enjoyed the company and chat. This has proved very successful, perhaps your local hospital could try the same.

I was in hospital in the summer having had a shoulder replacement, so I could not use the operated arm or hand at all. The canteen staff just dumped the meals with no thought whether I could actually eat them. Luckily I had DH to help, but it does worry me the elderly patients who cannot feed themselves and could quite easily leave hospital malnourished.

When my husband was admitted as an emergency leukaemia patient I was really grateful for the Burger King child’s meal. The tweeny tiny burger and the baby packet of chips were just about right to choke down 😬

I agree Doodledog, leave them to eat what they like.

As for patients, the amount allowed per head for catering is so small.

If I am in hospital again I am going self-catering.

I was pregnant for the second time in 1983 and was admitted to hospital for failure to gain weight.
I was told I may have to remain there for the rest of the pregnancy, several weeks still.

The hospital food supplied was far less in quantity than I'd been eating at home, so no chance of gaining weight there 😳
My husband used to bring me a big box of sandwiches and other foods when he visited every evening!
It was the joke of the ward: "What's he brought tonight?!"

It worked though, I gained some weight and was discharged, thankfully.

On a very stressful day in the Trust I worked for. We liked nothing better than Canteen Chips covered with Baked Beans and a Coke!
Pleased to say it wasn't that often.

Hospitals sell what people will buy. No point in throwing away lots of uneaten salad every night.

As for patients, the amount allowed per head for catering is so small.

If I am in hospital again I am going self-catering.

The one we frequent has wholesome foods salads sandwiches etc but also has curry chips fish etc it’s a combined canteen where staff and outpatients and relatives can use. Better given all options freedom of choice.

I think that food served to patients should be healthy, but if visitors want chips that should be up to them, and similarly, staff rooms should serve what staff want. It would be good if there were always healthy options such as soup or salad bars available, but if people working there fancy fish and chips or whatever, it is not for visitors to police it.

I don't know where staff at my local hospital eat, but the places open to the public all seem to be Starbucks and similar, with very limited ranges and high prices, so I doubt staff would have a main meal in there. They don't seem to sell meals - it's snacks such as cakes and sandwiches, which is ok if someone is visiting and didn't have time to make something to bring along, but not the sort of thing that would fill people up all day. It would also be very expensive to feed patients food like that, quite apart from the lack of variety.

Here in Manchester one of our main hospitals has a greengrocer in the entrance hall. The canteen food is not particularly healthy but at least patients and staff have a choice. I don't know the opening hours of the greengrocer though, it may not be possible on the night shifts.

Is "the hospital" actually running the canteen or is the running of it contracted out?

Our local heart hospital has a Greggs in the main entrance.

My husband has been in and out of various hospitals for some time and each canteen was selling rather unhealthy options. I would take my own sandwiches and a flask.
Was weird to see docs and nurses scoffing chips with salad - yes that seemed to be a winner!
Also was a run on hotdogs and chips.

Maybe if people ate healthy food they wouldn't need to go to hospital in the first place?

Hospitals should not be offering unhealthy foods or snacks at all but they are heavily sponsored by big food manufacturers.
I do think that this will change in the future as it's counter productive.
The health of the nation moving forward will be in decline and who will be well enough to work to support this country?
It's shocking.

Not unreasonable but maybe unrealistic. They have to sell food that is satisfying and not too expensive.