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Hospital vending: does it always have to be the bad guy?


Joe Harvey is a consultant for the Health Education Trust. With a health education management and teaching background that spans 25 years, his expertise and membership has influenced health education and policy change on both a European and international platform. He spoke to VI about the opportunity he sees for vending in NHS Trusts


“W


e all know from personal experience that food services in hospitals do not always offer the very best of examples of healthy eating. Coffee shops and vending machines are full of high-fat, high-sugar food and drinks. As vending is often seen as separate from the rest of the catering service in hospitals, it is not always managed or procured in a way that properly supports a hospital’s objective of delivering ‘health and wellbeing'.


Yet vended food and drinks play a significant role in supplying food and drink to staff and visitors, particularly for staff working overnight when all other food outlets on the site are closed. In a powerful piece on the direction NHS Trusts should take in the provision of food services, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens argued patients and staff always need to be offered healthy options in vending machines on site, which should also actively promote healthier options through targeted promotions.


Junk food, sugary fizzy drinks and couch potato lifestyles are normalising obesity. Stevens offered a stark choice: either we condemn our children to a rising tide of avoidable diabetes, cardiovascular disease and canc r,er, burdening taxpayers with an NHS bill far in excess of £8 billion by 2020 - or we take wide-ranging action.


‘FOOD FOR LIFE’ VENDING SOLUTIONS


From April 2015, all NHS Trusts have been required maintain a ‘Food and Drink Strategy’. This, alongsid


engaged relations h Year Forward View,


promotion of wellbeing and prevention of ill health.


Hospitals are now the new front line, and the Soil Association’s ‘Food for Life Hospital Leaders’ program is currently working with a number of Trusts to create the food and drink strategies required by NHS England. As part of this work, we are redesigning their vending services to deliver a range of healthy food and dri nks.


2 8


e the NHS Five to develop and


asks that the health service creates a more ip with patients, carers and the community in the


The key principles are that the service: • Puts health above profit


• Is an integrated and an integral part of the hospital’s foodservice • Always offers good nutritional value for money 24 hours a day – not empty calories


• Recognises that vending is often the only convenient source of food and drinks available to staff and visitors, especially overnight. Hospitals should not try to emulate the high street on product choices in their vending machines. Their aims and objectives are very different, and are not based on profit alone. The range of food and drinks that can be delivered through modern vending is wide and varied, and can deliver a principled, healthy, attractive AND financially viable service.


The Soil Association’s ‘Food for Life Hospital Leaders’ program is at the stage of supporting the writing of procurement tenders for several Trusts where old contracts are falling due. We would welcome the support of the vending and catering industry to help us find solutions to the challenges and opportunities this changing scene offers. Together, we believe we can develop a new and sustainable marketplace where vending is closely linked into the delivery of a healthy food and drinks service in all our hospitals.”


r, www. w.foodforlife.org.uk Food for Life: making Britain healthier through food


If you are interested in discussing any of these ideas or believe you already have some of the answers, please contact the author of this article at: joeharvey@healtheducationtrust.com Tel: 01789773915 or 07778650275


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