LET'S face it - nobody goes to a hospital especially for its food.

The main purpose of hospitals is to make people better, not to tantalise their taste buds.

With so much pressure being put on hospital bosses to reduce waiting times and improve treatment, they need the food to be as cheap and simple to provide as possible.

And if the meals don't measure up, the patients aren't really in a position to do much about it. They're a captive audience.

The patients at The Royal have to settle for meals imported from Manchester, but this isn't a cause for concern, according to Pat Bowman, the hospital's catering project manager.

Miss Bowman is responsible for all the catering at the hospital, which includes patients' meals and restaurant food.

She has a team of 35 caterers working under her, and there are 73 hostesses to serve the finished product.

The patients' food is cooked and chilled in Manchester, in the same way that supermarket ready meals or aeroplane meals are prepared.

"It's delivered in refrigerated vehicles," says Miss Bowman. "We have a large cold room in the catering department, and in response to orders placed by patients, staff put it in insulated boxes and send it up to the wards.

"We have hostesses and housekeepers who then 'regenerate' the food to the correct temperatures."

Note that the food is not re-heated as you might expect; I am assured the correct term is most definitely "regeneration", which conjures up images of dead meals miraculously coming back to life at the hands of skilled hospital workers.

Miss Bowman says patients are given a considerable choice of meals, including three main hot options, two sandwiches and a salad.

Traditional

Since April, the menu has included some of the much-vaunted Loyd Grossman-approved meals.

"They're not enormously popular," admits Miss Bowman. "We've just kept the more traditional dishes that are available."

The decision to bring in food from Manchester rather than cook it on site was made partly for financial reasons and partly because of a lack of available chefs.

"The benefits are that you don't have the costs of a large-scale kitchen on site, and there's a national shortage of chefs anyway," says Miss Bowman. "It's hard to recruit."

The hospital also has a restaurant, and while it doesn't have any Michelin stars, it does have a Heartbeat award.

This was awarded by the county council for providing a healthy environment, healthy food options and a non-smoking area.

As many as 1,000 hungry staff and visitors pass through the restaurant each day.

John Bremner, a 63-year-old from Evesham who has been in hospital since June with a pulmonary infection, said that most of the food was nice.

"You can't expect gourmet menus, but I've got no real complaints," he says. "It's a waste of money doing Loyd Grossman meals - you just want a decent meal and that's what you get here."