Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the merits of NHS plans to ask hospital cleaners to feed patients meals.
Cross training of National Health Service staff to increase multi-skilling produces a more flexible workforce which will better support delivery of services. The multi-skilled staff who can undertake both cleaning and food serving will undertake these roles separately and at different times, and there are no issues of cross contamination or infection control as no sanitary jobs are carried out by those serving food.