Better Food Programme
Flexi Menu
NHS menus traditionally change daily over 1-3 week cycles. This means that patients have a wide choice of dishes over a week but not so many to choose from each day.
Better Hospital Food is trialling a new Flexi Menu system that would give patients a greater daily choice of meals.
The Flexi Menu trials are designed to test the viability of offering the same fixed menu for both lunch and evening meals. This system would allow patients to select foods they enjoy and to have the same dish more than once. Limited early trials suggest this system would be popular with patients and result in less waste.
The Flexi Menu trials are being undertaken in three hospitals:
- Pilgrim, Boston, Lincolnshire;
- Solihull, West Midlands;
- Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Further trials are planned in four hospitals:
- Central Middlesex Hospital;
- St Mary's, London;
- Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich;
- Addenbrookes, Cambridge.
A downloadable draft Flexi Menu menu is available for information only.
Resources
Specimen Flexi Menu (1.1Mb pdf document)