TV food guru Lloyd Grossman's plans to revolutionise hospital grub were roasted today by East Lancashire patients who said: We don't want your fancy food!

Patients at Blackburn's Queen's Park Hospital have given a big thumbs down to celebrity style cooking and said they would rather stick to traditional meals.

The NHS announced yesterday that Mr Grossman had been selected to co-ordinate a panel of leading chefs who will help design a new national NHS menu -- at a cost of £40million.

But Eileen Davies, 69, from Whalley, who has so far sampled 16 days of hospital food said she had no cause for complaint about the menu.

She said: "The food is absolutely wonderful. I wouldn't change anything about the menu.

"I don't like all these fancy sauces and things and if they're going to start putting them on our food then I don't want a new menu.

"And to say these people are cooking for hundreds of patients they are doing a magnificent job and anybody that complains must be doing it for the sake of it. It's hardly as though we're in a four star hotel." And Abdul Bakawala, 48, of Whalley Range, Blackburn, said £40million was far too much money to spend on a new menu: "If they are going to spend that amount of money I think they should spend it somewhere else because so far the menu is reasonable. It's not as bad as everybody makes out."

Mr Bakawala said hospitals should cater more for multi-cultural societies and think about providing a greater choice of Halal dishes for Muslim patients.

Ivy Richmond, 94, from Accrington, said: "Some mornings you just want a bacon sandwich. A piece of toast would be a change from bread and butter."

John Holden, 69, from Feniscowles, Blackburn, said he had been in hospital for nearly seven weeks and the only thing he would change about the food was breakfast.

He said: "The worst meal is breakfast but I've never liked porridge. Give me a bacon butty any day. And they make an excellent meat and potato pie."

His wife, Eileen, said: "It's a good job the menu has been good because John is an excellent cook and loves his food.

"He made me two wonderful birthday cakes for my 70th birthday."

Rossendale's top chef, Andrew Nutter, who owns Nutter's Restaurant, in Edenfield Road, Cheesden, was all for a new menu as long as it had on traditional dishes: "I don't know what dishes they've suggested but nothing can beat traditional Lancashire Hot Pot."

And catering manager at Queen's Park Hospital Terry Wilson said he was grateful for the extra investment: "Extra investment is always a good thing providing it improves the aspect of hospital catering. If they can produce a better menu with the budget then that would be wonderful."

Picture: Catering assistant Debra Barker shows off a selection of food at Queen's Park Hospital.