'Healthy' guidelines for Welsh hospitals will ban most food and drink from vending machines, says Melanie Leech
Picture the scene: it's 4pm and you're a nurse working a 12-hour shift finishing at 8pm. You only managed to grab a quick 30-minute lunch. So after a day walking between wards you are looking forward to your afternoon break; relaxing with a cup of hot, sweet tea and a fruity cereal bar from the vending machines.
That's the reality in modern hospitals, says Lucy, a senior nurse. "Some days you are so tired that your body is craving energy, you need to eat something tasty," she says. So imagine her surprise when she heard of new guidelines in Welsh hospitals that will severely restrict the products that can be vended.
Under new guidelines, teas sweetened with sugar cannot be vended (they can if they use sweeteners, which many consumers don't like) and many fruity cereal bars will be caught by the regulations (because of the sugar content of their fruit, among other things).
The guidelines are now being challenged by a coalition of industry bodies including the Automatic Vending Association, British Soft Drinks Association, Dairy UK, the FDF, the NFU, Snacma and others.
Our coalition fully supports the Welsh Assembly's objective of improving hospital nutrition. But the hospital environment is unique in terms of the diversity of food and drink needs and these guidelines fail to recognise this challenge. Indeed, the new 'healthy vending' guidelines are, in reality, so restrictive they have effectively become a 'no-vending' policy for the Welsh NHS. Part of the problem is that Welsh Ministers have based their guidelines on the Nutrient Profiling Model developed by the FSA for Ofcom to use to regulate TV ads. The FSA itself advised against using the tool in relation to vending in hospitals - but its advice has been rejected.
There's no explanation for this baffling decision - nor are we told why the Welsh Assembly also applied guidance specifically developed for school food on top of the NPM. The result? Most food and drink products are effectively banned from hospital vending machines.
But for Lucy, there's one consolation. "Thankfully," she says, "I don't work in a Welsh hospital!"
Melanie Leech is director general of the Food & Drink Federation.
Picture the scene: it's 4pm and you're a nurse working a 12-hour shift finishing at 8pm. You only managed to grab a quick 30-minute lunch. So after a day walking between wards you are looking forward to your afternoon break; relaxing with a cup of hot, sweet tea and a fruity cereal bar from the vending machines.
That's the reality in modern hospitals, says Lucy, a senior nurse. "Some days you are so tired that your body is craving energy, you need to eat something tasty," she says. So imagine her surprise when she heard of new guidelines in Welsh hospitals that will severely restrict the products that can be vended.
Under new guidelines, teas sweetened with sugar cannot be vended (they can if they use sweeteners, which many consumers don't like) and many fruity cereal bars will be caught by the regulations (because of the sugar content of their fruit, among other things).
The guidelines are now being challenged by a coalition of industry bodies including the Automatic Vending Association, British Soft Drinks Association, Dairy UK, the FDF, the NFU, Snacma and others.
Our coalition fully supports the Welsh Assembly's objective of improving hospital nutrition. But the hospital environment is unique in terms of the diversity of food and drink needs and these guidelines fail to recognise this challenge. Indeed, the new 'healthy vending' guidelines are, in reality, so restrictive they have effectively become a 'no-vending' policy for the Welsh NHS. Part of the problem is that Welsh Ministers have based their guidelines on the Nutrient Profiling Model developed by the FSA for Ofcom to use to regulate TV ads. The FSA itself advised against using the tool in relation to vending in hospitals - but its advice has been rejected.
There's no explanation for this baffling decision - nor are we told why the Welsh Assembly also applied guidance specifically developed for school food on top of the NPM. The result? Most food and drink products are effectively banned from hospital vending machines.
But for Lucy, there's one consolation. "Thankfully," she says, "I don't work in a Welsh hospital!"
Melanie Leech is director general of the Food & Drink Federation.
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