A £40million government campaign to improve hospital food has been heavily criticised by the Liberal Democrats.

The party's spokesman for older people, Paul Burstow, criticised the programme after it was revealed that only a third of hospitals offered the menus devised by food writer Loyd Grossman.

Launched in May, health trusts were encouraged to introduce the menus by the end of last year, but in response to a parliamentary question the government admitted that only 35 per cent of hospitals met the deadline.

A change in mealtimes was offered only by 44 per cent of hospitals, while only 45 per cent could provide snackboxes between meals.

Burstow dismissed the government drive as "a gimmick".

"Alan Milburn announced to great fanfare that £40million would be spent overhauling the provision of hospital food. Take-up of this initiative shows it to be nothing more than a government gimmick at the expense of ward workload," he said.

"The government has got to realise that there are fundamental problems blocking the take-up of this initiative. Tailoring the provision of food to suit the needs of patients is a laudable intention, but without additional staff and resources, it is simply another time-consuming chore for nurses who are already overstretched."

He added that more needed to be done to provide help to those patients needing assistance at mealtimes.