Martin stars in Scarborough's menu makeover

With support from catering manager Pat Bell and her team, early indications suggest the project has been a success

Hospital Food is a topic close to James Martin's heart. He reveals: "Watching my grandmother dying in hospital was heart-wrenching. Here was someone who cooked every day, who taught me how to cook and was the most amazing influence on my life, and I saw her practically starve because of the food."

BBC's Operation Hospital Food, which aired during August and September this year, saw James Martin trying to tackle the many problems facing catering teams in hospitals across the UK. These include the cost of meals, patient feedback, and nutritional standards.

James worked alongside the catering team at Scarborough Hospital to create a new weekly menu, which has now been rolled out to patients and staff. Feedback has, so far, been positive. It is worth noting that the catering team only has a budget of £3.49 per person per day to play with. In an ideal world, they would love to be serving Sea Bass, but one portion would use up the budget for three meals.

Pat's new place
The hospital restaurant was also refurbished and renamed "Pat's Place" after catering manager Pat Bell, who has worked at the hospital for 21 years. She commented: "I don't think that James knew what he was getting himself in for. However, our staff have worked tirelessly in order to introduce a brand new menu that not only offers patients more locally grown seasonal food, but food that meets their nutritional needs as a hospital patient."

A patient and staff survey produced comments including - wonderfully prepared and creative food and compared to other hospitals the food standard is very good. So far, it would seem that the efforts of James, Pat and the staff at Scarborough have been fruitful. Pat continued: "We are delighted to see staff eating in the restaurant that we haven't seen for years."

James Martin, 39, was brought up in a farmhouse in Yorkshire. After being "Student of the Year" for three years running at Scarborough Technical College, he was noticed by top chef Anthony Worrall-Thompson and went to work in his Kitchen in London.  He then honed his skills in France, before returning to the UK to become head chef at the Hotel and Bistro du Vin in Winchester.  Here, Martin changed the menu every single day, and the restaurant enjoyed an eight week long waiting list.

Food as medicine
A stellar television career soon followed with frequent appearances in Ready Steady Cook and Saturday Kitchen, the show which he now heads up. His first book, Eating in with James Martin, proved popular and was followed by The Deli Cookbook, Great British Dinners, Easy British Food and the Great British Winter. A BBC TV series focusing on desserts, Sweet Baby James, was backed up by a best-selling book and aired in 2008.

Earlier this year, James took the decision to have a go at improving hospital food, a feat attempted by many, including Lloyd Grossman. Four hospitals turned the idea down, worried about negative press, before Scarborough agreed and the BBC's Operation Hospital Food aired in August and September in five parts. On hospital food, James commented: "I see food as a medicine. It's an essential part of the healing process. I think everyone's got a story to tell when it comes to hospital food."

Productive ward project
Mike Proctor, chief executive at Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "Over the past few months our catering, dietetic and procurement teams have worked tirelessly alongside James. As part of the Productive Ward Project we are also looking at our approach to how food is served to patients and what we can do to improve the process to provide a more holistic approach, reduce wastage and improve the patient experience."

Catering manager Pat Bell concluded: "We have been very touched by the positive comments that we have received following the airing of the programme."