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Editor's note: Emma publishes her own blog: Diary of a Painfully Shy Introvert Blog – Mental Health, Autism, Supernatural and many more topics covered. (emma-lucy-thomson.net). Do check it out.

Emma is also on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/em_doapsi​

by
Dr Dolly Sud, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Senior Mental Health Pharmacist
and
Neely Mozawala, Specialist Diabetes Podiatrist and Founder of Baking Medics

Writing on behalf of the:
No Hungry NHS Staff Campaign Team

In October 2020 an independent review of hospital food was published which made a list of recommendations of how NHS trusts could provide more nutritious meals to both staff and patients.

This review was chaired by Philip Shelley, catering lead for Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and led by a panel of advisers and included Prue Leith as an independent advisor.  This review reported that staff on night shifts were among the “most ill-served” when it came to hospital food.

The review highlighted how staff were “often eating from vending machines offering nothing healthy and nothing hot”. The review made a clear call for an upgrade of hospital and ward kitchens to ensure a 24/7 service could be provided for “everyone.”

Furthermore, the report also stressed that if a 24/7 food service was not available to staff, then they “must have access to appropriate facilities to safely store, prepare and eat their own meals at any time of the day or night”. The blueprint added that it was “essential” that hospital environments made it “possible and easy” for staff to choose healthy options. The report stated that: “Poor working conditions, including a lack of access to nutritious food and drink, can contribute to feelings of stress and lack of control in the workplace.”

The report also warned that the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in additional challenges on the access that staff had to food and drink and called for action to address this for the future. The report stated: “Even basic things, like drinking enough water, have been made harder by infection control procedures,” and “We must make sure that hospital infrastructure is improved to tackle these issues for future pandemics.”

The report added that the difficulties that staff experienced in accessing hot or healthy food along with time pressures put on staff during their working shifts eroded “the culture for taking time out from shifts to have proper breaks with appropriate food available.”  Importantly the report stated that Implementing recommendations for staff catering “should be an urgent priority and an easy win.”

Many would argue that it should not have taken this length of time to recognise the need for staff to have access to healthy and nutritious food during their shift. More than a year on from the publication of this report it is apparent that these recommendations have not been consistently or appropriately taken forward. NHS staff working in hospitals across the UK getting hot food particularly during night shifts is near impossible. Our research has revealed that 84% of NHS staff do not have access to a hot food service from their NHS trust during their 12 hour night shifts. Many staff also report that canteens are closed and facilities where they can prepare their own food have been cut.

The review also added that investment was also needed in technology to ensure every hospital could implement a digital meal ordering system by 2022. This would help staff to not only help staff make food choices but also manage allergies and diets and minimise waste and improve efficiency. Furthermore, the report stated that effort must also be taken to ensure government food procurement standards were upheld and that NHS trusts should also agree a common method of monitoring food waste.

We are currently running a national campaign in the UK to encourage NHS Hospital Trusts and healthcare institutions to put in place the provision of hot food 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The provision of hot food 24 hours a day, 7 days a week would have a positive impact on physical and mental wellbeing of those staff as well as morale across the NHS. Ultimately, this would result in an improved quality of care for patients and their families and informal carers.
​
How can you help? You can help us by writing to your Members of Parliament to urge them to sign an Early Day Motion calling upon the Government to provide the funding necessary to enable each hospital trust to provide a 24 hour hot food canteen service and dining facilities, providing affordable and nutritious hot food to their staff. This proposal is in accordance with the recommendations of the national independent NHS food review.

Our hope is that this is the first in a series of steps that will facilitate recognition of the importance of access to good nutrition to the wellbeing and mental and physical health of these NHS caring staff and to the quality of the care provided to their patients.
 

Please find us at
Instagram: @nohungrystaff
Twitter: @NoHungryNHSStaff

How did that happen? How on Earth can I officially be a pensioner? Yes, January 16th was my 66th birthday.

Whatever happened to that young man in the photograph below, getting ready to read the news on BBC Radio in 1981 when I was a mere 25? Gulp. That's 41 years ago! A change of career, five books, one wife, two children, a number of budgies, getting ill and getting better, a few cars...that's what happened to him.

Oh, and don't forget the thinning hair, the aches and pains, the diminishing energy, the...okay, my hearing's still good enough to make out the violins you're all suddenly playing. 

How the world has changed in that time. In the days of that photo the studio equipment of turntables, reel-to-reel tape recorders and faders, was absolutely state-of-the-art. But it's probably languishing in some broadcasting museum at the moment, as all programmes are driven by computer now.

Talking of computers, I first started using one in 1989; was almost reduced to tears of frustration when I was unable to control the first mouse to be introduced to my work station in 1992; and felt on top of the world when I invested in my first home computer in 1997. A great monstrosity of a thing it was, all £1,000 worth of it, with its mere 16MB of RAM.

OK, reminiscing over. Nostalgia back in the drawer.

Seriously, though, there are compensations. With age comes wisdom. No, stop laughing. I know now that when I thought I knew it all in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of long ago, I actually knew nothing. So knowing now that I knew nothing then, makes me wiser. Right?

Want to visit Bali?  Read my guide here.

by Simon Cole QPM, Chief Constable of Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland

It hasn’t been hard to be motivated. To see the efforts of health colleagues and to look at the response of police colleagues is inspiring. To see how communities have pulled together drives me on. There is always hope, that matters. It would be good to see Mum, or to sing along at a gig, or to stamp my feet as ‘Smoke on the Water’ cranks up as the Tigers run out at a packed Welford Road.

It would, strangely, feel good to be able to worry about the teenagers because they are out, not because they are in!

​These things will come. There is hope. One of those hopes is that we can look back and say that we played our part, and that we did our best. But it's not yet the time for looking back. It’s the time to keep on keeping on.