Part 6: Miscellaneous Food and Drink Section 173: Hospital Food Standards
Section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 provides the Secretary of State with a general power to make regulations imposing any requirements to be met by providers and managers of regulated activities that he sees fit in relation to regulated activities. The regulations made may, in particular, include provision intended to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of people who receive regulated health care, and to ensure that those services are of the necessary quality.
	This section introduces new section 20(3)(da) to the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and allows the Secretary of State to make regulations as he sees appropriate to impose requirements in connection with food or drink provided or made available to any person on hospital premises in England that are used in connection with the carrying on of a regulated activity. Such requirements include the power to specify nutritional standards, or other nutritional requirements, such as to specify descriptions of food or drink that are not to be provided or made available.
	Paragraph (a) amends subsection (3) of section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to introduce a new paragraph (da) which gives the Secretary of State a power to impose requirements in relation to food or drink provided or made available to any person on hospital premises in England that are used in connection with carrying on a regulated activity.
	Paragraph (b) inserts a new subsection (4A) into section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to specify that regulations made in relation to food and drink under the new subsection (3)(da) may be in relation to specific nutritional standards or other nutritional requirements, and may require that specified descriptions of food or drink are not to be provided or made available .
	Paragraph (c) sets out that the definition of hospital for the purposes of this section is defined in section 275 of the NHS Act 2006 which states:
"hospital" means:
any institution for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from illness,
any maternity home, and
any institution for the reception and treatment of persons during convalescence or persons requiring medical rehabilitation,
and includes clinics, dispensaries and out-patient departments maintained in connection with any such home or institution, and "hospital accommodation" must be construed accordingly.
	The Secretary of State is obliged to consult on any regulations made or any significant changes to existing regulations as required under subsection (8) of section 20.
	Section 162 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 sets out the parliamentary scrutiny for regulations made under section 20. Any regulations made under subsection (3)(da) of section 20 will be subject to those requirements.