Dr Madeleine Sharp is inviting the former Masterchef presenter to try the food for himself.

He was brought in to design an NHS menu as part of a drive to improve hospital food nationally.

The 89-year-old, who practised as a GP for 30 years in Coventry city centre, was admitted to the Walsgrave hospital after suffering a broken hip bone.

Dr Sharp went on to spend six weeks at the hospital in recovery from the operation, 10 days of which she says she chose to starve rather than eat the food which was served by the hospital.

Friends supplied her with sandwiches, hot water and Bovril for the rest of her stay because they were so worried for her health.

She said: "I think if my friends hadn't brought in food, I would have starved.

"What makes it worse was that we had to fill in an order form for the food we wanted for the following day.

"On the back of the form the company said how great they are at providing delicious and nutritious food.

"It also said it was put together by a team of top chefs, which made me incandescently angry.

"I want to know who they are and would invite them to try it for themselves."

She then went on to describe the various meals she attempted, which she says were all unsatisfactory.

Dr Sharp said: "I ordered an omelette - it was as tough as old boots.

"On one day I ordered fish with mushroom sauce knowing I wouldn't eat the fish but I thought I'd try the mushroom sauce.

"The sauce was thick and white and had about three mushrooms in it."

Her experiences did not improve when she attempted to eat a piece of apple tart.

"The apples weren't cooked and the pastry had been made with no sugar or fat," she said.

"When I complained to a nurse her response was 'Well, you can always add your own sugar'.''

Ann-Marie Cannaby, chief nursing officer, said: "We are sorry that Dr Sharp was not happy.

"Our catering service is provided by our private partner ISS and the food offered is made in conjunction with the NHS Menu which is headed up by Loyd Grossman.

"During June, July and August 2009, 35 respondents gave us feedback regarding food and drink with 89 per cent rating it as mainly good."

KITTEN season now being well and truly with us, supply certainly exceeds demand and the FTGH's are popping up everywhere.

So you get a free kitten, it will certainly cost you to keep it. The basics alone of food, FLEA treatment and worming will set you back in the region of £20 -£30 per month. If you cannot at least afford that, then please do not even think of having a cat.

We have received a couple of calls this week from people wanting help with flea treatments (as this is also well in the middle of flea season!).

Their houses are hopping off their foundations as fleas leap up at any passing warm blooded food source that comes their way. Cheap over the counter flea treatments aren't really any good and some of them are quite harmful to the household environment.

One of the best on the market and recently available 'over the counter' is the frontline spot on. Price varies dramatically from £30 for 6 pippettes from the vet through to about £17 for the same product online (Try our vetUK link for the website and we will also get a donation from the company).

That's the best we can offer I'm afraid. We are not hear to pay for essential maintenance for animals, we run at a loss most years and if we started handing out flea treatments we would have to close within a short space of time.

With fleas come their friends, tape worm. The tape worms are passed to the cat (or whoever) through their saliva when they bite. Therefore if you have fleas you have worms and again a proper wormer (Milbemax (vet only) and Drontal (VETUK again!) come to mind - others do not work.

Vets are now recommending that cats be treated each month. Typically a worming table will cost somewhere between £2 - £5.

Cat food costs vary enormously. While some of it is due to brand name and packaging, there is a lot of truth in the 'you pay for what you get' adage.

Cats, unlike dogs, can be frustratingly selective when it comes to what they eat. I swear my own can sense a buy-one-get-one-free offer and refuse to eat the brand they were happily eating the day before because it cost me less.

The cheapest brand of tinned food and some biscuits will cost about £3 a week, if you can get your cat to eat it.

Sometimes it is better to get a good quality food with better quality ingredients. Like people, a cat is what it eats and better food may ultimately make for a healthier cat and less vets visits.

Over the years we have dealt with thousands of cats and currently are so impressed with the quality of the Orijen dry food that we now stock it for resale. It is not cheap, a 7Kg bag costs a little short of £40 , but then it will probably last one cat a couple of months so in the long run is not really an expensive way to feed you cat. Dry food also has the benefit of not attracting the flies this time of year.

By Jon Cleaver

The Coventry based care provider, The ExtraCare Charitable Trust, has won a top award in the Healthcare and Medical Research category at the 2009 National Charity Awards event held recently in London, for its work in improving the lives of people with dementia.

Called the Enriched Opportunities Programme, it has been running since 2002, and is implemented by specially trained support workers known as 'Locksmiths.'

Research carried out with residents who have participated, found that the trend towards improved cognitive function of thinking, reasoning and understanding skills, is prolonged for a longer period, and showed that residents were much less likely to feel depressed, and they rated their quality of life significantly better.

A JILTED wife who torched the Warwickshire home of her husband's mistress as she slept upstairs has been sent to a secure psychiatric unit.

Parish council clerk Alison Watson, of Walton, near Lutterworth, was yesterday made subject at Warwick Crown Court to an interim hospital order under the Mental Health Act.

She had previously pleaded guilty to arson being reckless whether the life was endangered.

Watson will be taken off remand at Peterborough Prison and sent to Annesley House in Nottingham, a low security unit, for an assessment period of up to 12 weeks.

Judge Christopher Hodson told her: "The psychiatrists who have seen you are all of the opinion that you are suffering from a mental health illness, and that this disorder is of a nature and degree which makes it appropriate for you to be detained in a hospital for treatment for your own benefit and the safety of others."

As previously reported, Watson used firelighters to torch the home of Valerie Forde, in Rowan Close, Binley Woods, in February, a month after finding out her doctor husband Duncan had been having an affair with the nurse for three years. Both work at University Hospital, in Coventry.

A 17-year-old girl and three 16-year-old boys were arrested on suspicion of causing danger to road users, following a pile-up on the A46, between the TGI island and Tollbar Island, on Sunday evening.

At about 6.40pm, a green BMW 518, a green Ford Fiesta and a silver BMW X3, which were all travelling in the direction of Binley Woods away from the Toll Bar Island, were involved in a collision.

Warwickshire Police officers are investigating whether an object was placed on the carriageway prior to the smash taking place.

Emergency services were scrambled to the scene.

The latest attempt to get permission for a mobile phone mast follows the rejection by the City Council last year of an attempt by Vodafone to build a mast at the bottom of Leaf Lane next to the Pub's Car park.

Families armed themselves with blankets and hampers to help create the world's largest picnic on bank holiday Monday.

TWO initiatives submitted by University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust have been nominated for Regional Health & Social Care (HSCA) awards.

The trust's Centre for Reproductive Medicine and VitalPAC Project Team are both in the running for gongs.

Selected from 293 applications across the West Midlands, both projects beat off fierce competition to become finalists in the following category:

VitalPAC - 'Innovative Health and Social Care Technology Award'

Centre for Reproductive Medicine - 'Innovative Health and Social Care Technology Award'

Gavin Moran, Philip Bentham, Chris Wileman, Karl Wardzynski, Michael Cox, James Kenney and driver Nick Cook, all from the water company's traffic management section based in Finham, took part in the Three Peaks Challenge to raise funds for the charity Water Aid.

Joe, Grace and son Roberto, aged 21, of Deerdale Road, Binley, Coventry, have been in the city for eight years.

TELEVISION viewers are invited to go behind the scenes at Coventry's state-of-the-art University Hospital tonight.

A new series of the medical documentary The Real A&E will follow doctors, nurses and ambulance crews in Coventry as they give life-saving treatment to patients.

The programme, which was filmed between February and April this year, will feature some inspirational and shocking stories.

Craig Millward, 22, of Leaf Lane, Cheylesmore, Coventry, was warned by a judge that if he broke the law once more, he would be jailed.

Coventry Crown Court heard Millward headbutted and smashed a window at the Earl of Mercia, in High Street, Coventry, on March 27, after bouncers refused to let him in because he was so drunk.

MORE than one hundred jobs have been saved in Coventry after a buyer was found for the city's Isle of Capri casino.

About 120 workers at the casino were told this week that their jobs were safe after the company was sold to one of the country's biggest gaming firms.

Everyone's a winner..Phil Urban, managing director of Grosvenor Casinos, which has snapped up the Isle of Capri casino in a £650,000 deal, with Daniel Gidney, chief executive of the Ricoh Arena.

The young patients were showered with chocolate eggs thanks to generous donations from city recruitment firms Hamlin Knight Recruitment Agency and Select Appointments.

THE PEOPLE who run Cheylesmore Community Centre in Coventry want to tear down the 1930s premises and replace then with a landmark new building.

Centre manager Paul Jamieson says the ageing buildings limit the activities that can be organised and are expensive to run.

As a first step he and the centre management committee asked building and civil engineering students at Coventry University to come up with ideas for a replacement on the site of the existing centre in Arundel Road.