Hospital now biggest for complementary care after makeover

CELEBRITY chef, Jamie Oliver could be tempting the tastebuds of patients at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street, according to managers.
Dr Peter Fisher, rheumatologist and clinical director at the re-launched hospital for complementary medicine, said: “We have been battling for 25 years to ban the greasy burgers and chips and get decent healthy food on the NHS.
“We are now going to be able to outsource the contract for the café. We have thought of contacting Jamie Oliver. We really want to offer healthy food.”
On Tuesday, the hospital founded in 1849 and now run by University College London Hospitals (UCLH), opened its doors to the public again after a three-year, £18.5m facelift.
It is now the largest public provider of complementary medicine in Europe. The new building will also be the official NHS centre for complementary medicine, housing a brand new electronic library and walk-in information centre.
Dr Fisher said: “It is ten years to the day when we left the Bloomsbury Trust who wanted to close us down. Now we are part of University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Trust. Attitudes have changed. We have a lot of people who are keen to work with us and we are integrating vigorously.”
The hospital, which shares its premises with the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, has opened nine months later than scheduled – but within its NHS budget according to Dr Fisher.
Parts of the building remain to be completed – including the new walk-in information centre and the hospital café – but Dr Fisher said that staff had been keen to “just get on with it”.
He said: “We have a long history of bringing new things into the NHS, including the first acupuncture clinic in 1972, the first musculoskeletal service in 1995 and the first complementary cancer service in the 1950s.” Esther Fried, 53, a cancer patient who was referred for the hospital’s complementary cancer treatments a year ago, said she was delighted by the makeover. She said: “Hospitals are very important and it is great that they have invested so much money in it. The services here are excellent – the attention, the alternative approach and the standard of the care that they offer.”
A UCLH spokeswoman said: “The contract for catering services at the hospital has not yet been awarded. We plan to make the café a beacon for healthy eating within the NHS and will be looking for partners to provide the catering in the near future.”