My Lords, I have two amendments in this group—Amendments 154 and 155—though they are rather different from those
discussed in the debates that we have just heard. I declare my interest as the president of the Hospital Caterers Association.
We have heard a lot about the risk of obesity, but we also know that many patients coming into NHS hospitals come in with nutritional issues, where good food and good nutrition could very much help them on their way to recovery. The research has indicated problems where patients are not feeding properly.
We are very grateful to Ministers for the meeting we had with the Hospital Caterers Association and the National Association of Care Catering, with the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. We are very grateful too that Clause 161 sets out specifications for hospital food standards.
There are just two quick points I want to make. First, it is a great pity that we do not have a similar process in relation to the care sector—care homes, in particular. One of the amendments relates to that: we want to see the provisions extended to the care sector. We also want to ensure that staff working in the care sector are suitably trained and that there is a suitable framework to ensure there is a high level of professional staffing.
My second point relates to the National Health Service. Although lip service has always been paid to good standards of hospital food and nutrition, unfortunately the boards of NHS organisations have often found it difficult to provide the resources to enable that to happen. The suggestion in my first amendment is, in fact, that a board-level director should be appointed to oversee this to ensure that the standards laid out as a result of the Bill, when it becomes law, will be put into practice. Alongside it go similar provisions in relation to ensuring that we have high-quality staff who can take advantage of a focused approach to training, which, at the moment, has been missing because a lot of the national infrastructure for training for staff in the NHS in the ancillary services has been neglected.
I hope that, following the discussions we had with Ministers, the noble Baroness will be able to be positive in relation to this tonight.
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