A REPRESENTATIVE for Gobowen’s orthopaedic hospital featured on national television on Friday to talk about the trust’s 'outstanding' food.

Phil Davies, head of estates and facilities at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt (RJAH) hospital, was a guest on the BBC Two Victoria Derbyshire show during a segment focusing on the current state of hospital food across the NHS.

He was invited to the show to talk about the fact the food served to patients at the Gobowen-based hospital has been voted as the best in the country.

The RJAH has been named as the hospital to serve the best food across the UK for 13 of the past 14 years.

Phil’s appearance on the show comes after the Department of Health and Social Care announced they will be launching a review into hospital food.

The government body aims to make food healthier, safer and better tasting, and hopes to bring more hospital catering in-house, like at RJAH.

When asked about the team of caterers on site during his time on the show, he said: “We take absolute advantage of circumstances where we are. We are relatively small hospital and we have a higher element of elective work

“Our patients can come through our pre-op department and find out if they have any dietary needs.

“Those who have very specific dietary needs will be contacted in advance and we will then work out a menu specifically for them.

“We’ve got a great team of chefs, but it doesn’t just stop there – it’s the environment in its entirety.

“Our patients walk into a clean hospital, our great estates team look after the environment, so they go into somewhere where they feel the place is being looked after.

“We’ve come top in the country for patient food which we’re incredibly proud of, the cleaners have come top of the country, the nurses and doctors are also very highly rated, I think in the top two this year.”

Phil was also asked whether the system implemented at the Gobowen hospital would be transferable to larger hospitals.

“Elements of the way we cater for patients are scalable to larger hospitals,” he said.

“A lot of trusts have been in contact with us to find out how we do what we do.

“There is a place for chilled and frozen food because of the number of meals that have to be delivered in such a short period of time.

“We are very proud of the way we do what we do, and we believe for hospitals our size and to varying degrees, larger and smaller, there is a lot they can learn from what we have done.

“We are happy to invite people to site because I believe the NHS is happy to learn from each other right now.”