A new meals service for NHS staff at Helston Community Hospital has been set up.

Organised by professional chef Paul Stephens and his partner Emily Close, they intend to feed the staff at the frontline of the Coronavirus pandemic at Helston Community Hospital and beyond.

You can follow the progress on their Facebook page here.

Paul Stephens told Nub News:

"My best friend works at Helston Community Hospital and I know he works long hours and probably the last thing he wants to do is cook a meal so I just started cooking him a few meals a week and then thought why not do this for everyone if I can get the facilities."

Paul and Emily started on Friday and got some donations from Mrs K's in Helston to get them started, to which they got hold of some bananas and made banana bread to drop off.

The pair managed to sort the use of Henly's Kitchen, and using produce from Scorse Foods, Paul describes it as "a big version of Ready Steady Cook."

Paul said:

"One of the best donations we have is Henly's and the use of their kitchen because there is no way I could do it in the small kitchen I have at home."

It is early days for the project but Paul praised the community for their support:

"The community has been amazing considering how new it is, I have lots of my chef friends asking if they could help ideally I would like other kitchens to open up and feed other hospitals as well.

"Ideally I would like this to be a roll-out thing where every hospital has one or two restaurants looking after it just to look after everyone in the NHS."

"I cooked the first batch yesterday and bumped into a doctor on the way in and he was happy with what we were doing and thanked me, everyone has been so lovely.

"People who have been working the night shift have been posting about how much they loved the meal and it helped them get through the night."

Paul has big ambitions for the project and doesn't intend to stop just at Helston Community Hospital, he added:

"My dream for this is that if we can eliminate that NHS staff food budget and get them fed, then that money can go towards PPE or equipment. It is early days but eventually, I want to write to the local government and try and get them involved with it."

A JustGiving page has also been set up with a target of £1,000 to support the meals scheme. Click here to make a donation.