Five months on an NHS hospital ward could have left me malnourished

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The news that health secretary Matt Hancock has ordered a “root and branch” review of hospital food obviously cannot come soon enough after the deaths of five people following a listeria outbreak. A recent poll found that even NHS staff don’t want to eat hospital food, and more research shows that patients’ comments range from “pigswill” to “not fit for dogs”. As the Soil Association’s Food for Life hospital programme states, “good food is the cornerstone for good health”, and it has the admirable goal for hospital food to be appetising, nutritious and sustainable, but only one in five hospitals are currently achieving this. When you’re languishing in hospital and the only thing to look forward to every day, the only thing that breaks up the boredom, is your meal times, then having something that doesn’t make you wish you were still being tube fed can only be a good thing.