I HOPE lots of readers heed our call to tell us about food served up at the Great Western Hospital.

We made that call after a patient called Roger Strange was refused a Halal meal. Although he’s a non-Muslim, he’d asked for one because he says meals obeying the dietary laws of various faiths tend to be better than the ordinary kind, which he described, as “...pretty disgusting, to be honest.”

Having seen and sampled some of the swill served up in the hospital, I have to say Mr Strange has a point. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I knew a patient who survived for days on sandwiches because certain of the meals looked like something you’d scrape from your shoe with a piece of newspaper.

I remember gazing at one plate of horror and remembering an old Les Dawson joke about the food on a ferry being so bad that the seagulls all had one foot jammed down their throats, trying to eject it.

Carillion, the provider of these delights, insists that improvements are being made.

In that case, I’ll look forward to happy patients sending me images of exquisite culinary delights.

Either that or stories about their sudden conversions to other faiths.