Hospitals bin meals worth £40k

More than £40,000 of food was thrown out at Stafford and Cannock hospitals in just 12 months, it emerged today. A total of 28,828 meals were discarded last year.

It follows news that the catering service at both hospitals is losing £500,000 a year. Bosses are now planning to close Cannock Chase Hospital's kitchen and transport meals 11 miles from Stafford.

Freedom of Information figures for the financial year 2011/12 show 360,358 patient meals were produced. Of these, eight per cent – or 28,828 – were thrown away.

George Adamson, leader of Cannock Chase District Council, today said it was a high amount of food to waste – and he feared the proposed changes would only make matters worse.

"The trust's proposed plans are likely to mean they have more waste as people don't want reheated food," he said.

"When people are feeling poorly, they don't always feel hungry, so there will always be some waste. But this figure does seem a high amount."

During 2011/12, Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust spent £1.42 per meal to feed one patient. This meant a total of £40,935.76 of food was thrown away.

Bosses said figures for the number of discarded meals for 2010/11 were not available but that 374,879 meals were produced in total. During 2010,11 it cost 4p less – £1.38 – to feed a patient.

Under the shake-up Nightingales restaurant at Stafford will close at weekends.

It comes as the trust battles a deficit. Earlier this year, chief executive Lyn-Hill Tout said that the trust ended up with a deficit of just under £20 million while this year's planned deficit was £15m.

Mid-Staffordshire Trust was unavailable for comment.