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Why personalised mealtimes matter more but are harder to provide
A collaborative research report by apetito and Care England underlines the increasing importance of mealtimes to care home residents’ wellbeing and health outcomes. James Leigh, General Manager for Care Homes at apetito gives an overview.
Mealtimes are essential to delivering high- quality care, having a significant impact on residents’ health outcomes, quality of life and daily experiences, as well as being increasingly reflected in assessments of service quality. The new collaborative research report,
Nourishing Lives: Shaping the Future of Mealtimes in Care, from apetito and Care England found that the perceived importance of mealtimes in care homes is rising, with providers no longer recognising
Volume 11 Issue 4 April 2026
CARE HOME
ENVIRONMENT
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Overcoming challenges to personalised mealtimes
it as just an optional enhancement. Mealtimes are viewed as the most
important part of a resident’s day by 95 per cent of care homes – a 15 per cent increase since the previous ‘Nourishing Lives’ research conducted in 2023 – and 80 per cent believe the dining environment is a pivotal factor for families choosing a home for a loved one, up from 50 per cent. Despite this, there is an evident, widening
gap between this aspiration for a high-quality, person centred approach to mealtimes, and the reality of what staff can provide. This article will explore some of the
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report’s key findings that raise concern about care homes delivering a personalised approach to nutrition and dining, implications for safety and quality, and how sector workforce pressures continue to exasperate the challenge.
The rising complexity of nutritional needs Increasingly, care homes are supporting residents with complex dietary needs, whether through living with conditions like dysphagia and dementia, food allergies or having cultural and personal preferences - all of these must be managed by already time-pressured kitchens. This means that providing personalised
nutrition is no longer based on simply offering choice but is critical to support
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www.thecarehomeenvironment.com April 2026
clinical needs, directly influence health outcomes and ensure safety during mealtimes, with grave consequences of getting it wrong. The report shows 88 per cent of care
home providers find it difficult to ensure all residents receive the correct nutrition, a notable increase from 2023, while only 17 per cent have personalised nutrition plans in place for all residents, showing a significant fall from around half (50 per cent) compared to three years ago. While 90 per cent of care homes
support residents living with dysphagia, only 86 per cent say they are adhering to the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) when preparing texture modified meals. This is an area that seems to have gone backwards in recent years, showing a 10 per cent deterioration from 2023 data, and highlighting an area of concern around safety from choking, and care quality. From this it seems clear that, despite
understanding its importance, care homes are operating in a space that
THE
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