Junk food vending machines to be banned from NHS hospitals

Chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks will be replaced by muesli bars, nuts and fruit juices.

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Hospital shops, including those run by the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, will also be encouraged to provide healthier food.

The transformation will take place over the next six months in hospitals in Wales, with sugary, fatty and salty snacks in vending machines replaced with a range of Government-approved healthy alternatives.

If the trial proves successful it could be extended to cover hospitals in England within two years.

Wales has an alarmingly high rate of diet-related illness. Sixty per cent of adults are overweight or obese.

But the drive is also being aimed at children after it was revealed 20 per cent of six to 13 year-olds in Wales are overweight or obese, the highest rate in the UK.

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Welsh health minister Edwina Hart said: "The public sector should be setting a good example, particularly our hospitals.

"We need to create an environment where it is easier for people to make healthy choices.

"Diet has an important role to play in the prevention of obesity and chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

"This is the first stage of our plans to improve hospital food."

The Welsh Assembly will meet with vending machine providers to find ways of introducing the healthier snacks.

It will also publish clear definitions of what will be allowed in the machines.

But Vanessa Bourne, of the Patients Association, warned the healthy foods should not be too expensive.

She said: "We need to be aware that the healthy option shouldn't become the expensive option because if it is, it won't work.

"A choice is the obvious way to go and to educate people in the most meaningful sense."

The ban was not well-received by some patients in Welsh hospitals yesterday.

Bill Lyons, 75, who is in the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, said: "I think they should keep chocolate.

"It's a real bind being in hospital and it is something to look forward to."