Mann, der Krankenhaus-Essenstouren durch Großbritannien liebt und 10.000 Pfund in NHS-Kantinen ausgibt

Just a preface: I love what this man’s doing helping the NHS. I’m not sure if this is something which should be actively encouraged, I don’t know how the NHS would feel about that, but still a few people doing it can’t hurt. No jokes or malice were intended in this post.

Text:

A man who loves [hospital food](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/31/labour-pledges-food-half-british-schools-hospitals-country/) has spent £10,000 in two years at NHS canteens, as he believes the price and quality beats any restaurant.

Omar Shafiq, 33, has toured the UK for the best hospital dish, eating more than 700 hospital meals before crowning Great Ormond Street’s fish and chips the winner.

He says he goes to the canteens despite having no hospital appointment or intention to visit anyone.

Mr Shafiq, who owns a shop in Bolton, explained that visiting hospital canteens satisfied his nostalgia for 1990s school dinners and would help [support the NHS](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/13/throwing-money-at-the-nhs-wont-fix-it-says-bupa-boss/).

“I would much rather eat in a hospital than go to a restaurant,” he said. “In my opinion, the quality of the food is far better and the service is far better.

“You know what you are getting. It’s much better value for money.”

He added: “I think it’s one of the best ways to support the NHS. The money I spend will go back to the NHS.”

Mr Shafiq’s hospital food obsession began just two years ago, when he was visiting his father at Royal Bolton Hospital.

Since then, he estimates that he has spent “around £10,000 in the last two years in hospitals”, occasionally venturing to a canteen for all three of his daily meals, each priced between £5 and £10.

Regular appearances at his local Royal Bolton Hospital’s canteen started to draw attention from staff, leading him to adopt disguises when visiting multiple times a day.

He said: “I’ve given the game away a bit now, all the doctors and nurses have started to look at me.

“I used to sometimes go twice in one day, and then have to go home in between and get changed so they wouldn’t recognise me.”

Mr Shafiq has also travelled further afield for hospital food, visiting NHS canteens when in London and Glasgow.

For the best hospital fish and chips, he recommends the Great Ormond Street Hospital, in central London.

He said: “The fish and chips in almost all the hospitals up and down the country is epic. But the one that really stood out to me was the one that I had in London.

“The Great Ormond Street Hospital fish and chips – it’s well worth a visit to the hospital for that food, really. It’s the best in the country.”

Mr Shafiq’s favourite go-to meal is a jacket potato with toppings, while his least favourite meal was a vegetarian lasagne at Wythenshawe Hospital.

He said: “It triggers and brings out those old memories of your youth and the good old days when you were in school. That is kind of what does it for me.

“It’s also just a meal that I know I’m very familiar with, and I like to have it. I’m one of those people where I’m set in my ways. If I like something, I’ll keep doing it.”

He added: “Good and bad comes from a hospital. People are sick, and then they go in there to get fixed, so to speak. It doesn’t always have to be a sad place.”

This is definitely a made up story to shine a better light on the soon to be fully private NHS. Brought to you by American companies.

He is right they are usually half decent nhs canteens. I work for nhs unfortunately barely any in the places I work

tbf the canteen at The Christie hospital in manchester is top tier!!

The best food I ever had in a hospital was at The Wellington Hospital owned by HCA, near St. John’s Wood. It’s a private hospital but their canteen is open to public, decent prices and amazing food for being in a hospital. I work in the healthcare so I travelled the country quite a lot. The worst was the bolognaise lasagna I had at Northampton General Hospital 😂

I too had to eat a lot of hospital food after my traumatic brain injury. Luckily, I got better

I’ve never known anyone to actively choose to eat in hospital canteens. Only eating because they’re visiting someone and hungry! 😂

When I was doing lab work at a local Hospital I quite enjoyed the canteen food. It was pretty much just a chippy though lol. Like, I enjoyed it as much an any other takeaway. 

That pic makes him look like he ordered from his nearest kebab takeaway, not an NHS canteen.

Is our food for hospital patients that bland? What the fuck have the Tories done to us?