ERI food bill: 'It is time for NHS Lothian to come clean'

HOSPITAL food has always been a bit of a joke – but no-one should be laughing at the latest offering being served up at the ERI.

While five years ago NHS Lothian paid Consort 80,000 a month to provide patients' food, by last year that figure had rocketed to almost 200,000 a month.

Now, there could be good reasons for that. After all, when the News smuggled some ERI food out for a taste test five years ago it was described as being like "chewing cardboard".

And two years ago Consort ended the controversial contract which saw frozen food being brought in from Wales to be reheated – changing to a supplier in the West of Scotland.

But NHS Lothian has been reluctant to explain away the rise in costs – indeed the News can only reveal them today because an appeal ruled that the health board had been wrong to refuse to divulge them.

No-one believes that the price of food has risen by 150 per cent since 2005, so that can't account for the rise. If anything, last year's cut in VAT should have reduced costs.

And it is hard to see how the addition of only 22 beds at the hospital could have led to such a dramatic increase in food being prepared and costs.

It is time for NHS Lothian to come clean on all the facts. If that leads to unfavourable comparisons with food quality and costs at the Western General, where the NHS provided its own food in-house, then so be it.

Dogs on a leash

THE shocking increase in dog attacks we report today offers further proof that it is time to challenge the idea that just anyone should be allowed to own such pets.

At the moment, all it takes to bring a dog into your home is the ability to buy one. This might be fine if it just covered lap dogs and docile pets.

But this is not the case. It is just as easy, if sometimes more expensive, to buy those breeds which excel as guard dogs or which are too often used as a status symbol – and sometimes as a weapon – by certain types of thug.

The number of dogs does seem to have gone up dramatically since the licence was scrapped in 1987, to approximately 8 million – even if it was a tokenistic 37.5p.

There were 52 dog attacks in Edinburgh last year, and the News has reported cases of children scarred for life. It is time to consider a new licensing scheme, with microchipping for ID purposes, to force dog owners to be more responsible.