NHS Lanarkshire annual review

The Board had reason to be confident — for it had been meeting, or bettering, its targets on major issues.

These included patient waiting times, particularly for those with cancer, reducing MRSA and C Difficile infections in hospitals, as well as its financial balance, and its own staff sickness rates.

But then Nicola Sturgeon Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, who had been speaking to patients earlier on Thursday before chairing the Annual Review of NHS Lanarkshire, bowled them a googly.

"One issue raised with me this morning was the quality of food and nutrition in hospitals," she said, adding that the results of one survey showed that had been one of the areas in which NHS Lanarkshire had scored lowest.

Chief Executive Tim Davidson said that they had been very

disappointed with that response.

The Board did a rolling programme of surveys while patients were in hospital, and the satisfaction rates were usually very high.

The survey Ms Sturgeon had was of patients once they were back in their own homes.

Trying to understand the difference between the survey results of patients in beds and back home, Mr Davidson suggested that

perhaps when patients returned home they compared hospital food with good old home cooking!

For more on the annual review, pick up a copy of this week's Carluke and Lanark Gazette.