Hospital to cut back lunch menu to make savings

Lamb hotpots and steak and kidney pie will no longer be on the lunch menu for Sandwell Hospital patients as bosses bid to save more than £120,000.

Dishes such as gammon in parsley sauce, vegetarian curries and sweet and sour chicken will also be off the lunchtime menu.

Instead patients will be offered soup, sandwiches, salad and jacket potatoes as a replacement midday meal following a review.

Chefs will still cook up a full hot meal for patients on evenings under the scheme, revealed by officials at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust which also runs Rowley Regis Hospital, and City Hospital in Birmingham.

It comes as the trust battles to make around £20 million of savings in this financial year in a bid to balance the books.

Officials said that the changes to the meal service for patients will be brought in from the end of October.

The hospital trust's chief nurse Colin Ovington today said that the changes to meals had taken place after a consultation with patients. He said: "We asked patients earlier in the year about introducing a new menu that includes one full hot meal a day with a choice of sandwiches, soups, salads, jacket potatoes for the other meal. Patients were broadly supportive of this proposal so we will make the change at the end of October and our hot meal will be in the evening."

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The hospital trust has been battling to find extra savings from budgets which include a making another £19.9 million of cuts in the next financial year.

Around 1,400 posts are set to be slashed from the trust over the next six years as it looks to save a total of £125m by 2020. Consultations and reviews are currently taking place with staff and unions over the move.