THE James Paget University Hospital spends �2.85 per patient per day on meal ingredients - that is the total for up to three meals, two snacks and seven drinks.

THE James Paget University Hospital spends �2.85 per patient per day on meal ingredients - that is the total for up to three meals, two snacks and seven drinks.

In an in-depth look at the food our regional hospitals serve up, The Mercury's sister paper The Evening News reveals the food you get in hospital could have travelled 60 miles from the kitchen where it was prepared, and the ingredients may have done a few hundred miles between them before that.

But that doesn't apply at the James Paget; there, food is prepared from fresh in the hospital's kitchens.

Perhaps surprisingly, the difference comes down to what hospital you go to, and even what you choose from the menu.

At the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, most food is bought in ready-made from Colchester, 60 miles away. It comes as cook-chill meals, which are individual meals which have been cooked and refrigerated, ready to be reheated in the ward kitchens.

The N&N spends �5.06 per patient per day, which is not a direct comparison because most of its meals are bought in, so it will be effectively paying for some of Anglia Crown's staff costs but reducing its own.