HSE seeks big fee for details of foodbudget ‘overheads’

The HSE has refused to explain how much of its hospital food budget is spent on “overheads”, such as staff, storage and electricity — and, as such, what remains for patient meal ingredients — unless a significant fee is paid.

In July, the Irish Examiner revealed hospitals are spending as little as €2.03 per meal on ingredients for patient food.

This was based on HSE Freedom of Information Act details showing ingredient spend and patient levels for each hospital since 2006.

The HSE dismissed the figure, arguing that the average “cost of providing the meals” — not the cost of the ingredients in the meals themselves — is €8-€9. A spokesperson accepted this second figure includes a range of costs in addition to the ingredients, such as staff, food storage, food transport, electricity, and cooking.

However, when a breakdown of these extra details was requested, the HSE said the individual costs were not available.

A breakdown of the number of staff looking after patient food at each hospital and their positions, in addition to the names of the companies providing the meals and how much they are paid for this work, was also sought, but this information was again not released.

The system’s acute hospital services rejected an initial FOI request over the length of time it would take to find details behind its figure.

A second reduced request from December, containing the three points above, was again rejected — unless €534.22 in search and retrieval fees was paid.

I'm really hungry the hospital food is not edible

— samuel constancio (@sam_constancio) January 14, 2013

The HSE said this is because it would take an individual at each hospital “0.75 hours” to find the information.

The HSE’s July response to the original Irish Examiner article said “the cost of meals provided to patients will vary from hospital to hospital, depending on the range of services and the number of high-dependency patients”.

The original FOI request sought the “range of services” and high-dependency patient numbers information for each hospital. However, it was rejected.

It said it was not “fair” to compare hospital meal costs with restaurant meal costs without including “the overhead costs of providing the food, preparing it, cooking it, staff serving it, etc”.

Overall hospital food budgets have been cut by 20% since the height of the boom, falling from €30.5m in 2008 to €24m in 2011 — the latest full year available. The HSE said a key reason for this is the move from local contracts for each facility to national contracts.

The lowest individual spend on ingredients per patient meal in 2011 was €2.03c at Waterford General Hospital, just below St James’s (€2.10c), Tallaght (€2.15c), the Rotunda (€2.33c), and Mallow General, Cork (€2.77c).

In all, 33 of the 45 public hospitals which provided figures spent less than €3.90c on the ingredients for patient meals in 2011, with just five spending more on ingredients per average meal that year than in 2008.

Food for online thought

*The HSE has stressed reductions in the cost of hospital food services save money and do not impact on nutritional standards.

However, in recent days patients have again begged to differ — with some posting pictures of meals online to prove their point.

All hospital patient meals are ultimately overseen by the HSE’s national advisory group, made up of dieticians, catering managers and procurement officials, and tasked with ensuring high quality meals are provided at the best value to the taxpayer.

However, pictures posted by patients at www.broadsheet.ie suggest that — in the public’s view at least — this is not always the case, causing a Twitter and Facebook stir.

Among the images are a meal of sausages and scrambled egg and a second picture of a spring roll with chilli sauce dish, both given to a long-term patient at Beaumont Hospital.

“I was in for a while so the food became a pretty hilarious distraction.

“They give you menus the day before and you can pick from two or three options, so in a way I was responsible for what arrived,” the patient wrote.

Another picture of a meal from the Coombe maternity hospital, taken this week, showed what appeared to be badly burnt wedges.

The images received both positive and negative responses from hundreds of people on social media sites.