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| Sustain Who1 #352919 The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity. | |
+Citations (2) - CitationsAdd new citationList by: CiterankMapLink[2] Yet more hospital food failure: The bill rises to £54 million, and still counting…
Author: Kath Dalmeny, Alex Jackson - Sustain, Good Food for Our Money
Publication info: 2010 March
Cited by: David Price 3:57 PM 1 January 2015 GMT
Citerank: (4) 352374Improve nutritional standards for food in hospitalsIntroduce food-based standards—in line with those put in place for schools in England in 2006—in all UK hospitals in the next 18 months; with commissioners working with a delivery agent similar to the Children’s Food Trust to put these measures into place.565CA4D9, 352779Align public food procurement and catering with public health goalsPublic sector organisations are estimated to provide around one in three meals eaten outside the home, so the government can further its public health goals, and model the behaviour it desires to see others adopt, by setting and paying for high standards of public sector catering.565CA4D9, 399577Improve nutritional standards for food in hospitalsIntroduce food-based standards—in line with those put in place for schools in England in 2006—in all UK hospitals in the next 18 months; with commissioners working with a delivery agent similar to the Children’s Food Trust to put these measures into place.565CA4D9, 399595Align public food procurement and catering with public health goalsPublic sector organisations are estimated to provide around one in three meals eaten outside the home, so the government can further its public health goals, and model the behaviour it desires to see others adopt, by setting and paying for high standards of public sector catering.565CA4D9
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| | Excerpt / Summary When politicians get into office, they seem to like to launch an initiative to improve hospital food, usually involving a celebrity chef to do a make-over of meals. It’s a pattern that has been repeated many times over the past decade. The politicians probably think they’re doing some good, and they certainly enjoy the media coverage it creates.
However, this report reveals that such voluntary initiatives have wasted over £54 million of taxpayers’ money over the past 10 years, and probably much more (as we have not included in our calculations all the money wasted on government staff time, committees and management consultants). Not a single scheme over the past decade has succeeded – however famous the celebrity chef – precisely because the initiatives were voluntary. Government has failed to send a clear message to hospital caterers that the quality of their food is critical to patient health and to the sustainability of our food system. School meals, on the other hand, have consistently high nutrition standards to protect the health of the children they serve. Why? Because there is a law to ensure that our money is spent on improving food quality.
This report provides a potted history of the plethora of voluntary initiatives that government has launched over the past decade to attempt to improve the quality, healthiness and sustainability of hospital food. Although it focuses on hospitals, we are interested in the healthiness and sustainability of all public sector food. Over one billion meals are served in the UK’s public sector every year.6 This presents a tremendous opportunity to improve public health, encourage sustainable food production methods and provide delicious meals!
The report has been compiled by Good Food for Our Money, which is a national coalition campaign for a law to make it routine for food served in the public sector to have high health and sustainability standards. We believe public sector food is one of the key ways to transform the food and farming system so that it improves people’s health, protects our environment and gives better value for money. |
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