HEALTHCARE & HOSPITAL FACILITIES


A TASTE OF SUCCESS FOR HEALTHCARE CATERERS


Ian Jackson, Managing Director of the CAP Awards, for catering in healthcare and hospital facilities, explains how your team can make their menus sparkle to an award-winning standard.


High quality delicious and nutritious food is absolutely integral to a decent healthcare service, be it in a hospital or a care home.


When patients and residents are asked to rate their care experience the standard of the catering on offer is always top of the list, we shouldn’t be surprised that this is the case. In daily life we’re quick to complain if we eat out and the experience falls short of our expectations.


Getting catering right in a healthcare facility matters. It matters because the nutritional balance of the meal is closely linked to the health of the service users and it matters because lovely delicious food is a source of enjoyment and happiness, a highlight of the day.


At the CAP Awards we assess hospitals and care home providers on their catering offer and help them improve their service.


So how can caterers deliver personalised, tasty, variable menus day-in-day-out, and to budget? Here are our top tips:


• Menus must absolutely be aligned to patient/resident needs and expectations.


• Make sure you ask the important questions: What local dishes do the patients/residents like, which comfort foods do they enjoy and how do they usually balance wet and dry dishes?


• Consistency of quality is critical. There’s no point in cooking a delicious apple crumble one week if the following week it is unpalatable. This makes it seem that the catering team don’t have their eye on the detail.


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• Make sure you have the skills in your catering team to deliver the menus that have been requested


• You need quality food served all week; don’t make Friday ‘the day the food is rubbish’.


• Keep the menus balanced in terms of nutrition, both within individual meals and by service. There needs to be a good balance across the whole day – breakfast, lunch and dinner.


• Avoid repetition by running short menu cycles. No one wants to stare at the same list of foods every day.


“COMMIT TO


A PLANNED YEARLY TRAINING SCHEME SO EMPLOYEES ARE ALWAYS LEARNING.”


Of course it goes without saying that robust food safety procedures are absolutely vital. Ensure you have Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point data from supplier audits through to control at the food service point; you’re looking to create a complete chain of compliance.


You must also value your staff. Catering in a healthcare environment is a tough job so make sure they know they are appreciated. A great way to do this is enter awards scheme such as the CAP and commit to a planned yearly


training scheme so employees are always learning.


Ensure that the catering team is aware of each person’s role so that the front and back of house communicate on service needs, expectations and understand the pressures that each other face. Good communication will make sure that the kitchen teams get the food out on time and the front of house are serving it as expected.


Patient/resident feedback is a must and should be regularly collected via a number of different routes, verbal, written and electronic. Without this you’re flying blind and you’ll probably only know that your service isn’t up to scratch when someone makes a serious complaint.


To create that extra special atmosphere for care home residents plan ahead on a rolling 12 month schedule so that key events are mapped out including special events, anniversaries, birthdays and taster events.


Finally, the catering department must develop a good relationship with the other teams within the hospital or care home; clinical, care, maintenance, housekeeping and SMT, as no one department can deliver the consistent excellent required without the help of others.


Getting the catering right in a healthcare facility is a tough challenge but it can be done and for those who excel the reward will be happy patients and residents, high occupancy rates, dedicated staff and a gold standard reputation for being a facility that really does …care.


www.capaward.co.uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM


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