HOSPITAL patients who may go hungry are being offered vouchers by food bank bosses before they are discharged home.

Medics have been worried that some people, on leaving care at the Royal Blackburn, do not have adequate provisions to aid their recovery.

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And now with the help of the spiritual centre at the Haslingden Road site, Blackburn Foodbank is stepping in to offer ongoing assistance to the needy.

Rev David Anderson, a hospital trust chaplain, who is leading the referral scheme, said: “Having food, clothes and people to talk to are things that we all need in order to be physically and mentally well.

“However not all our patients on discharge have access to these things.”

Nurses and doctors can, if they have any concerns where they believe a patient may be in urgent need of food and drink, or any other immediate form of social support, make a referral to the food bank. Rev Anderson added: “Linking in with our local food bank makes these things available to some of our most vulnerable patients and supports them in staying healthy.”

One of the chaplains can deliver the voucher and may be able to establish an underlying cause for the patient’s difficulties, so practical guidance as well as emergency food parcels can be offered.

Ros Duerden, Blackburn Foodbank manager, said: “I’m delighted to be in a working relationship with East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust to support the people of Blackburn with Darwen as they return to the community.”

Earlier this year the Trussell Trust, which originally established the Blackburn foodbank, estimated that one in five parents would skip a meal during the summer holidays to ensure that their children did not go hungry.

And official figures from the Department of Health backed Health and Social Care Information Centre revealed that the number of people in English and Welsh hospitals, admitted with malnourishment, had gone up from 5,469 to 6,520 in a single year.

The trust has even recently worked with Tameside Hospital, in Greater Manchester, to create the first food bank based inside NHS premises, in response to concerns over food poverty.