This year’s Hospital Caterers Association conference called for greater partnership working as the way forward for improved patient nutrition

The 2009 Annual National Conference of the Hospital Caterers Association took place at the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre and Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow on 23-24 April. Entitled ‘No Borders, No Boundaries’, the conference debated the issues that affect patients’ meal time experiences and tackled the concerns that create a divide between the various professional disciplines in delivering an effective catering service.
    
Many improvements have been made to hospital food over the past few years but headlines have continued to appear about patients being malnourished whilst in hospital. With this in mind, the HCA Conference 2009 focused on how health professionals can work together to recognise and overcome the obstacles that work against food service and delivery on the wards.

Partnership working
All professional disciplines acknowledge that maintaining and protecting patients’ nutritional status is a primary focus and the efficient management of food services is central to patient wellbeing and recovery times. This year’s conference agenda placed the spotlight on the initiatives and measures that are aiming to strengthen partnership working.
    
Dr Liz Jones, head of Patient Environment at the Department of Health, started the conference with a presentation theme of ‘Merging the Boundaries around the Healing Environment.’ Dr Jones also launched the new Department of Health’s ‘Sustainable Food – A Guide for Hospitals’.  
    
The quality, nutritional value and sustainability of food has an increasingly high public profile and will become one of the factors by which patients will exercise choice when selecting their healthcare providers. In response to the sustainable food agenda, the Department of Health has produced a Guide for hospitals that illustrates good practice through case studies and details relevant various food assurance schemes, regulations, reports and publications. The Guide anticipates the public sector Healthier Food Mark which will be launched in 2010 and which will have a significant sustainability component.  
    
Aimed primarily at catering and procurement managers, but also of use to facilities directors and commissioners when planning service developments, the Guide describes why the sustainability of food is important, provides guidance on what hospitals can do to improve the sustainability of the food they serve to patients, staff and visitors, and advises on how hospitals can assure the sustainability of their food service provision. The Guide is available from the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) and information is available on the agency’s website.

Nutritional fact sheets
Caroline Lecko, nutrition lead at the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), launched the final three of ten new Nutritional Fact Sheets.  These are designed to assist health care staff to implement the Council of Europe 10 Key Characteristics of Good Nutritional Care. The Fact Sheets are designed to be ‘meaningful from the bedside to the boardroom’. They aim to help with the implementation of each Characteristic by identifying the actions that need to be taken and the resources that would help ensure the delivery of an effective food and beverage service. A joint initiative from the NPSA and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), all 10 Fact Sheets are contained together in one folder.
    
Outspoken journalist and food critic, Jay Rayner “challenged caterers to raise the bar” by outlining the findings of his latest research into the quality of food service provision. He also offered his views as to whether changes for the better have occurred since his article published in September 2006 in The Observer Food Monthly entitled ‘Hospital food – It’s enough to make you sick’. Jay highlighted key issues about the need for better communication with patients as well as questioning the investment in drugs versus the provision of real food.
Other speakers included :

• Using E-Learning to Blur the Boundaries, by June Lancaster, Core Learning Unit, Skills Academy for Health (NHS)
• An EU Approach to Making your Catering Services Greener, by Tracy Cook, European policy manager, NHS European Office
• It’s All About the Money – The Scottish Route to Branding, by David Bedwell, Health Facilities Scotland
• The Premises Code: A Code of Practice for Quality and Safety in Healthcare Premises, by Peter Sellars, Deputy Director of Gateway Reviews and Estates and Facilities
• Hungry to be Heard – 1 Year On, by Gordon Lishman, CBE, Chair of The Nutrition Action Plan Delivery Board
• RCN ‘Nutrition Now’ Campaign – Enhancing Nutritional Care, by Susan Watt, learning & development co-ordinator (Professional Practice), RCN, Scotland
  

In summary, it is apparent that we must continue to place the emphasis on improving the delivery of food to patients and the whole meal time experience. We also need to explore how we can, particularly in acute hospital environments, overcome the hurdles that often inhibit our ability to achieve higher levels of service for our patients, both to meet their expectations and to safeguard their nutritional status and wellbeing. The key messages that clearly emerged from the 2009 HCA Conference were that there should be no boundaries in providing a better meal service to our patients and that we should all ask the question mentioned in one of the sessions “would you be happy to eat this meal?” It is up to us as hospital caterers to stand up and be counted when it comes to providing nutritional care for our patients.