HOSPITAL managers have been assured catering problems which have left patients sending relatives out for provisions will be sorted out soon.

Catering giant Sodexo began providing food to the University Hospital Staffordshire (UHNS) last month.

Initial concerns about food being cooked in South Wales and driven 140 miles to reach patients were quickly followed by a raft of complaints when the operation began.

Patients reported meals arriving late, wrong orders, cold food or nothing coming at all.

MPs and unions got involved in the row and hospital directors used yesterday's meeting to look for answers from Sodexo representatives.

Bosses at the operator pledged problems would be sorted out soon.

Operations director David Platt said: "We would expect the major issues will be resolved by the end of this week."

Trust director of corporate services Andrew Underwood told the hospital's board: "The big problem we had following the handover has been catering but since the handover, there has been a significant improvement.

"There have been too many problems for us to be anything but disappointed with the way it went, but they have been identified.

"All the people involved in this are determined they will put the problems right and put them right quickly."

He said problems stemmed from a series of small issues, including menus being incorrectly completed, independent judgments being made on what food was 'acceptable' and problems in delivering meals due to hold-ups with returning equipment.

He said: "Clearly we need to do better, and we all know that, but we did look at what could go wrong.

"But we anticipated things going wrong in totality, not the multitude of little things, and I think that is what we need to learn from."

Non-executive director Kevin Fox told Mr Platt: "It surprises me it has gone wrong to the extent it has because you are not new to this game."

Mr Platt said the project team met on a daily basis to address issues but the operation was complex.

North Staffordshire Healthwatch co-ordinator Ian Syme said: "Nutrition is extremely important in the recovery of patients."

Patient representative Ken Lownds said, although he had found the food acceptable, the organisation had not been good enough.

He said: "I was disappointed to see there were teething problems and you obviously do not have zero tolerance because the flaws have happened."

And he said to the board: "You should be bouncing suppliers off the wall when they get things wrong because I do not think that has been happening enough."