Scotland could become the first country in the UK to legally oblige hospitals to serve nutritional meals to patients.
New guidelines on NHS catering have been unveiled by the Scottish health secretary Alex Neil.
According to BBC News, there will now be a consultation on whether the new measures should be legally binding.
Extra funding will be made available to help health boards improve food standards, and more inspections of hospital meals will be carried out.
Neil told BBC News that Scottish hospitals had made 'great progress' in the quality of their food in recent years, but acknowledged there was still 'more that can be done' to drive up standards.
The measures announced by Neil were:
- Improved nutrition and catering standards introduced in the new year, supported by increased inspections of hospital meals;
- A consultation to determine whether nutritional standards in hospitals should be placed on a statutory footing;
- A further £300,000 will be invested to help boards to improve nutritional care.
Full details of the new guidelines are due to be published in January.
Earlier this year the Scottish government launched a competition aimed at improving catering in the health service.
Chefs and catering teams had to come up with a menu which was locally sourced and met nutritional guidelines, with the winning entry then rolled out across the whole of NHS Scotland.
