Blogs / 29.08.2019

Your key to keeping ahead of the game in food service quality and standards

It’s only a matter of weeks since Health Secretary, Matt Hancock announced a root and branch review of the food quality and its delivery in hospitals. 

The review will consider whether kitchen facilities can be changed and improved, whether using less frozen food is possible and whether sourcing local fresh produce can be used.

The great news for existing Medirest and Steamplicity customers is that the answer to all three of the questions is already, Yes, Yes and Yes! 

The Significance of Nutritious Hospital Meals: Improving Patient Health and Recovery

It’s great to see Prue Leith involved. A well-known restaurateur, novelist and hospital food campaigner, Prue has often shared her thoughts on the topic of hospital foodservice; she has rightly criticised the standard of many hospital meals and has called for NHS trusts to provide more appealing and nutritious food. 

Prue was at the launch of The Patients Association’s own Patient First survey way back in 2016. The survey provided practical recommendations for food providers, servers of food, hospitals and commissioners that will make a real difference to the patient experience, highlighting key areas where improvement can be achieved in hospital food services (you can see a brief resume of the 16 recommendations in the infographic above).   

Medirest funded this independent survey as part of our commitment to providing leading edge food service to patients, staff and visitors across hospital in England and Wales.   Food and drink provided for patients in hospitals is an essential element of care: poor nutrition and hydration not only harms patients’ health and wellbeing, it can also reduce their ability to recover and leads to increased admissions to hospitals and care homes. The benefits of improving nutritional care and providing adequate hydration are immense, particularly for those with long-term conditions.  

Whilst we wouldn’t want to pre-empt Prue’s latest review we will gladly share with you the Patient Associations, Patient First study – we believe it can give you a great head start.

Give Brooke Pinkney a call on 01822 813065 to get your complimentary copy.