Whittington hospital has thrown away almost 200,000 unopened, unserved meals in four years, enough to provide dinner for everyone in the borough, an investigation by Islington Now can reveal.
The statistics were released by the NHS in a report outlining hospital estates and facilities statistics from 2008 – 2012.
Dwarfing wastage by other London hospitals of a similar size and sparking criticism from environmental watchdogs, the Whittington threw away 26,275 edible meals in 2012, almost 30,000 in 2011, 35,000 in 2010 and a colossal 108,000 in 2009. The estimated cost amounts to some half a million.
Campaigners accuse the hospital of ignoring the dietary needs of patients.
In comparison, North Middlesex University, a hospital categorised as equal to the Archway institution and also commissioned by the London Strategic Health Authority, discarded just over 20,000 in the same four year period.
While wastage at Whittington has steadily decreased over the last four years, from 19% of all ordered meals in 2009 to 6.8% in 2012, they have still thrown away more meals in the last year than any other small hospital in London; an average of 72 meals each day.
More meals thrown away than four nearby hospitals put together
According to the NHS Hospital Estates and Facilities statistics, the hospital has discarded more meals than four other hospitals combined: North Middlesex, West Middlesex, Newham and Ealing since 2008.
Paul Grant, the project manager for Love Food Hate Waste at Voluntary Action Islington (VAI) slammed Whittington officials for failing to reduce wastage while jobs are under threat.
“Obviously it’s a crazy amount of waste,” he said. “A big part of what we do is explaining the issue in a lot of detail, breaking down the figures. The general response is that people are very shocked by it.
“It’s amazing that that much money and food are being wasted when jobs are being lost. It’s even more crazy that this doesn’t even include what goes in the bin from a patient’s table.”
Bulk buying
A spokeswoman for the Whittington described the situation as the unavoidable by product of bulk buying, a practice that they are trying to phase out.
“We currently operate a bulk meal service, which gives patients the flexibility to choose an alternative meal at the point of service,” she said.
“We have made a number of changes to the service to manage and reduce food waste at ward level. Recently we introduced a plated meal service on one of our wards as part of the process to reduce our food waste. The process of introducing the plated meal system is also considered for the remainder of the hospital.”
But Tristram Stuart, founder of Feeding the 5000, a charity which promotes food distribution, and author of Waste, said too little had been done, adding that “the difference between Whittington hospital and its peers demonstrates what a huge opportunity food waste reduction can be.”
He said: “Simply by improving the management of food provision, with a focus on ordering and demand forecasts, places like hospitals can save enormous costs at the same time as helping to protect the environment.”
‘Bottom third for performance’
The findings come a week after a report by healthcare experts placed the beleaguered hospital in the bottom third in the country for performance.
Professionals at MHP Health Mandate, a health policy think tank that ranks hospitals based on patient priorities, found that Whittington was amongst the worst for catering to people’s needs.
The group placed Whittington 96th in a list of 146 hospitals and found it was in the bottom quarter for responding to the risk of acquiring MRSA and accommodating patients who did not want to share sleeping areas or bathrooms with members of the opposite sex.
Adding to concerns that hospital staff are failing to acknowledge patient preferences, the Care Quality Commission found in their last annual report that Whittington often failed to consider patients’ dietary needs and preferences before dishing out meals.
The regulator reported: “There is some inconsistency in the way that staff respond to individual dietary needs. People’s preferences were not recorded, and some staff were not proactive in offering people alternatives if they did not eat their meals.
“There was a lack of variety of soft food options, which did not always take account of people’s cultural preferences, other than Kosher and Halal options.”
In the last year several patients have complained to charity groups that hospital’s food is inedible. Responding to concerns, VAI published a series of comments from ex-patients.
“I’ve been coming to the Whittington for about three years and the food is horrible,” said one. Another added: “The meals are poor, the smell of the food puts you off eating it. They are not fresh, they are like microwave meals. They can’t help you get better.”
