More mush

I simply couldn't resist sharing this culinary delight with you. This came straight after a four-hour operation. If anything could push recovery into reverse gear, this plate of food could do it. So much hospital food is just mush without texture and now, thanks to healthy eating guidelines, flavour. With lower salt, sugar and fat guidelines, most hospital food now tastes even worse than it looks. Sick people need tailored nutrition and high-quality ingredients. Your car wouldn't function if you put unfiltered chip fat or whale oil in its petrol tank... the human body isn't any different.

What is it about officialdom that can’t bear criticism or even the merest hint of publicity? Take Argyll and Bute Council, in Scotland. This bastion of bureaucracy has ordered nine-year-old Martha Payne to stop blogging about the school dinners she eats at her school in Lochgilphead, Argyll.

The mighty council appears to be afraid that a little nine-year-old girl might cause it a few problems. Martha runs a blog called Never Seconds where each day she takes a snap of her school dinner, writes a bit about it and reflects on her day. Now, I for one think it’s brilliant that a nine year old is writing a blog, learning to use a digital camera, uploading it to the Internet and sharing her world with everyone. It’s precisely the sort of skills we pay teachers to impart to our young ones.

Martha raises money from her blog for Mary's Meals, a charity which runs school feeding projects in communities around the world where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. So not only is she a computer whizz, she’s got a great heart and sense of civic duty.

But the council decided to stamp all over Martha. Argyll and Bute Council said it "wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service" and then made the ridiculous statement that national headlines had led catering staff "to fear for their jobs". Well. perhaps they'd better pull their fingers out and buck their ideas up a bit.

In a statement officials said: "The council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the NeverSeconds blog for obvious reasons, despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils, however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing."

They had to act to protect their staff from the distress and harm caused by a nine year old? Are these people mentally ill? What sort of madness is that?

"In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

"There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha's father. However, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

"The council has had no complaints for the last two years about the quality of school meals other than one from the Payne family received on 6 June and there have been no changes to the service on offer since the introduction of the blog."

So, the heavy hand of the unions prompted the pen pushers to cut Martha off at the knees because it might upset a few cooks. Her pictures are unwarranted attacks on a bunch of turkey twizzler reheaters. Oh grow a pair and get real! The school, by the way, was very supportive of Martha.

Now thanks to an Internet uproar, the idiots at the council have reversed their ridiculous decision and Martha’s website has raised £20,000 for a very good cause. I doubt any of the school cooks are genuinely fearing for their jobs (although it looks as if they ought to) and this whole episode just goes to show what a bunch of complete and pathetic arses we have running some of our local councils. I experienced something similar when I was writing my blog in hospital and I doubt whether it would now be possible to do what I did. Institutions like councils and hospitals are becoming so risk averse that even a little criticism cannot be tolerated. This lack of free speech is the sort of thing that Leveson should be investigating instead of running an extended psychotherapy session for has-been politicians.

Over to you, my noble Lord.

Yuk!

I still can't bear to look at this image of what was called a 'bacon chop'. It certainly should have been for the chop but this was seriously served as a piece of protein during my ten-week hospital stay. It flies in the face of all the nutrition advice that the NHS propaganda machine pumps out. I doubt if anyone audits the quality of the meals, as the people doing the auditing don't have to eat this crap. If this food was fed to the hospital management it would be changed immediately. Many hospitals do serve good food, but it's normally in the staff canteen. This tells us much about the NHS.

Dish of the Day

This was one of the meals served up during my most recent stay in hospital. I don't have words to describe it, unfortunately.

Sandwich scandal

Whoever put this little delight together clearly had an NVQ Level 2 in Spread Technology but had obviously flunked their NVQ Level 1 on Stuffings. This is the sort of rubbish that's supposed to nourish one very sick person for at least one of their daily meals during a hospital stay. The even bigger scandal is that these pathetic snacks when ordered 'out of hours' if, say, a patient misses a meal while being x-rayed or operated on, can cost up to £35 in a PFI hospital. That's what you call earning a crust.

The battle continues

Meal from my last visit. Can you guess what it is?

Well that was a slightly longer break than I had intended! For those of you still subscribed to my blog I’d like to welcome me back. I know that sounds a bit strange but I really do have a few good excuses for not having written. The main excuse was another stay in hospital to have a large lump of ironmongery removed from my leg now that my femur has knitted itself back together. Unfortunately this was followed by another bone infection and a six-week course of antibiotics. Touch wood, I’m back on the mend and feeling quite a bit better.

While I’ve been away I’ve noticed that absolutely nothing has changed concerning the dire quality of hospital food. In fact, the awful stuff I was fed during my last hospital stay was every bit as bad as the last... and possibly worse. Long-time visitors to the blog will recall that I made a documentary for Channel 4’s Dispatches a year or so ago and as a result the petition I set up calling on the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, to do something hasn’t even received an acknowledgement. Despite 4,000 people taking the trouble to sign the petition, the man in charge of the NHS hasn’t even so much as raised an eyebrow.

So what are we to do? Is there any point fighting on trying to get hospital food improved? Well, I think there is. I may be out of hospital and hopefully I won’t taste that awful food again for some time, but plenty of sick and frail people are still relying on meals that cost less than £1 to produce. For many it’s their only source of nutrition and their recovery is being impeded. I need to think of some new ways of tackling this subject and would really appreciate any suggestions that you might have.

So if anyone’s still reading, please fire up my indignation and help me with some ideas of how I can bring the truly shocking aspect of the NHS to the attention of the wider public.