Hospital food cooked with fresh local ingredients could put hundreds of millions of pounds back into the NHS, one hospital trust has said.
Catering managers at Nottingham City Hospital and the Queen's Medical Centre have switched to such a menu.
The trust says the daily plate saving is £2.50 per patient - that is more than £6m a year.
Trust catering manager John Hughes said up to £400m could be saved annually if it were rolled out across the NHS.
'Tough decisions'
The food travels less distance than many of the 7,000 patients who choose from the menu each day.
The hospital contract is also supporting dozens of local farmers and has saved a number from going under.
In its first year the farm-to-plate scheme has put a million pounds into the local economy and that is likely to double over the next 12 months.
Mr Hughes says the idea of getting his beef from down the road rather than South America sounded good but he thought it would be too expensive.
He was also concerned there would not be enough fresh local produce to fill his cupboards.
"I was happy to be proved wrong on both counts," he said. "This was one of the tough decisions I think we'd be cheered to the rafters for taking."
"It doesn't actually cost any more and you are actually going to invest in local communities and the local suppliers you want to develop. On top of that it's actually going to save the NHS millions of pounds a year."
via news.bbc.co.uk
My bet is that not only is this a money saver and a help to local food producers but also that the food served will be better for all in hospital too.
Can we not use our local institutions - schools and hospitals - as an anchor for a new local food system?
Since 2003, the catering team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has been working to provide a sustainable food service as part of the Trust’s Good Corporate Citizenship initiative.
This includes more sustainable food procurement, working with community social enterprises to set up community cafes, and reducing the hospital kitchen’s carbon footprint.
The Trust also plans to introduce a biomass system to cook patients’ food, using locally grown biomass as fuel. This is expected to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and reduce the catering system’s carbon footprint by up to 90%.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust supports a number of other initiatives to promote sustainable activities and has been recognised for a number of its initiatives as the 2007 and 2008 winners of the Health Service Journal Awards for Corporate Citizenship.
