Marks and Spencer is charging hospital patients up to six times more for items than on the high street
Grapes, yoghurt, bananas, apples and orange juice are among items which have seen prices hiked
GREEDY Marks & Spencer is charging hospital patients up to six times more for fruit and veg than on the high street.
In-patients and visitors pay 60p for a banana which costs 10p at an M&S branch down the road.
Apples can be almost double the price while strawberry punnets, often a patients’ favourite, cost 50 per cent extra.
Grapes, yoghurt and orange juice are among other items which have seen prices hiked by M&S, which has more than 15 branches in hospitals.
Rachel Power, of the Patients Association, slammed the practice as “cynical and highly unfair”.
We visited seven hospitals with an M&S and found price hikes in all. In branches at King’s College Hospital, South London, Middlesbrough’s James Cook Hospital and Darent Valley in Dartford, Kent, bananas were 60p.
Identical fruits were 10p at an M&S less than a mile away.
As for apples, a 139g Gala Royal was 60p at M&S in James Cook but at a branch half a mile away a 177g apple was 36p — almost 50 per cent more expensive.
Most read in news
In the Royal Derby Hospital, a 400g punnet of strawberries was £3, but £2 at the nearest high street M&S, a 50 per cent rise.
Even a 750ml bottle of Scottish mineral water — £1 for patients and visitors — is just 85p outside.
At South London’s Croydon University Hospital a litre of orange juice is 29p more than £2.99 asked on the high street.
Consumer expert Clare Bailey said: “Patients, staff and visitors are getting a very raw deal. It is important The Sun on Sunday has raised this. More must be done.”
M&S said prices could be higher in hospitals due to increased running costs, such as longer opening hours.