Rotherham bottom of hospital meals spending league

The NHS foundation trust spends just £2.93 per person per day, compared with the £19 for meals laid on by Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership.

The national average is £7.93 per day.

The figures were revealed ahead of a Care Quality Commission report warning of poor NHS practice over nutrition for the elderly.

It shows an average of one in 12 hospital meals is returned uneaten—costing the NHS £22 million a year nationally.

Rotherham Hospital chief Matthew Lowry said: “Providing patients with good quality, healthy meals is a very important part of their care.

“Providing good food cost-effectively is a challenge but we work very hard with our contractors, ISS Mediclean, with whom we have a long term relationship, to ensure we achieve value for money without compromising on quality.

“Meals are produced on the hospital site which helps us to keep costs low and the trust’s food wastage figures are considerably lower than the national average.”

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A spokeswoman said the low wastage rates—better than the national average—were a good sign that patients were happy with the meals.

Mr Lowry added: “Patients get a choice of tasty, nutritious meals throughout their stay with us and they tell us we're getting it right.  

“The trust conducts regular patient meal surveys and we consistently achieve high satisfaction rates, but we are still committed to improving wherever we can.

“We are also externally assessed on the quality of our patient meals and consistently achieve high scores.”