THERE’S been a lot in the media about the state of hospital food, but the truth is, for many of patients, the meals are hard to swallow.

It’s nothing to do with the quality or the food, though. It’s because their illness means they literally find ordinary food difficult to swallow.

Patients with this kind of problem include those who need speech therapy and a lot with neurological conditions, such as strokes, head and neck cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s or infections.

Now, Southend Hospital’s catering team, Medirest, is offering a new range of modified-texture food on all wards to help give patients back their dignity and bring life back to their tastebuds .

For the staff severing it to feel able to recommend it, they have to know what it tastes like, so that is exactly what they did.

Staff, from consultants and rehab assistants to physios and catering assistants, all did their best Gregg Wallace and John Torode Masterchef impressions and put the food to the taste test.

Four textures are available – a thin puree, thick puree, premashed or fork-mashable – each designed for patients with different levels of swallowing ability.

And despite how some of this food might look compared to normal meals, hospital staff who tried it have given it a hearty thumbs-up.

Claire Buckell, clinical development nurse, said the food would make big difference for patients.

She explained: “For a patient to enjoy their food, it not only needs to taste nice, but also look appetising to tempt them to eat it.

“Having appealing modifiedtexture food will play a big part in improving the quality of care we can offer, because eating properly is a vital part of recovery.

“If patients don’t eat properly they become more confused, have less energy, become malnourished and take longer to heal. Our elderly, unwell patients often need to consume a lot of calories to help their body heal.”

Ms Buckell said in the past, nursing staff had sometimes struggled to get patients to eat previous modified texture meals, which didn’t look very appetising.

She added: ““We took the new range to each of the adult wards to show staff the difference and let them taste it and see hownice the new products looked.

“Every ward agreed the new product was much nicer. A couple of staff even asked if they could finish the dish off once everyone else had had a taste!”

Staff trying the food on Westcliff ward included nurse Merry Tamondong and ward clerk Mary Burton, who both gave the food the thumbs-up.

Ms Burton tried to the shepherd’s pie and treacle pudding while Ms Tamondong’s taste buds were tickled by beans on toast and lemon pudding.