HOSPITAL bosses are working with Age Concern to ensure pensioners are fed properly while they are patients at the Royal Bolton.

Special trays were introduced into all the wards at the hospital last year to ensure those who needed help at meal times were given it and there are no visitors allowed during breakfast, lunch and dinner times. Food for patients who need help eating is sent up from the kitchen on a red tray, mustard trays are used for those patients who need supplements and green trays are for normal meals.

Beverly Andrew, director of corporate services at the hospital, said: "We have a nutrition group chaired by a nurse with the focus being improving diet and nutrition.

"We've now had a meeting with Age Concern, where we have been discussing what we're already doing and how we can improve on this."

As well as the coloured trays, there have been changes to the menu, to make them easier to understand and new items are continually being added.

"Protected" meal times were introduced almost two years ago - where patients are not disturbed by doctors on ward rounds, physiotherapists, or nurses taking blood samples - to eradicate the problem of disturbed eating times.

All elderly or vulnerable people being admitted to hospital are given a nutritional assessment to ensure they are of a healthy weight and have a balanced diet.

Bosses have spent £13,200 on weighing scales for each ward so patients can be accurately weighed.

Gareth Evans, chief executive of the Bolton office of Age Concern, said: "Clearly this is an important issue and we recognise and acknowledge some of the very helpful initiatives that the hospital has already implemented and we support those fully.

"But we recognise that there is still some way to go."