Nottingham Children’s Hospital wins top catering honour
The Catering Production and Food Service team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is celebrating after its commitment to creating healthy menus for infants and young children won top honours at a national ceremony.
Last week the team won the Hospital Catering Award at the Public Sector Catering Awards for its infant feeding menu at Nottingham Children’s Hospital (NCH).
Food Production Manager, Sue Austin said: “I was very surprised we won as we were up against some fantastic nominees. It was an honour to represent the Trust on the night and to accept the award. I am very proud of our team.”
The Catering Production and Food Service team developed the new menu after they identified issues with the insufficient supply and availability of infant food for inpatients.
The team wanted to ensure all infants and young children had access to appropriate and healthy meals with adequate nutrition and hydration for growth and development whilst in hospital. Weaning is an important part of infant development and infants and young children make up a large patient group at NCH.
A multi-disciplinary team including catering, dietetics and nursing was established to create the new baby pouch infant feeding menu, explore the processes involved in making baby meals on-site and to produce a blended food menu for patients to use via a gastrostomy.
In a matter of weeks the team developed and launched the new menu benefitting patients and ward staff alike. Patients can now choose from a variety of nutritious food pouch flavours at meal times.
Meals are ordered via the electronic ordering system, allowing us to monitor usage and manage waste efficiently. Wards also have a small additional supply of stock to support infants requiring food outside of regular meal times.
The new menu means patients are receiving the nutrition and hydration they require to support recovery.
Catering Facilities Manager, Marie Gurling said: “I’m so proud to be part of the catering team at NUH. It is a great achievement to be recognised for all our hard work and new initiatives which have been introduced to improve patient experience at NUH.”
The team are now into the next phase of the project and have started to develop an in house baby food to compliment the food pouches on the infant feeding menu.