NHS Supply Chain Food: to publish sequel to children’s recipe book
The books offer inspiration and a fresh approach to children’s feeding to chefs and culinary members within trusts as well as providing children with something new and different from what they’ve had before in hospital, encouraging them to say ‘More Please!’ and now ‘Even More Please!’.
NHS Supply Chain: Food collaborated with NHS England and charity Sophie’s Legacy to ‘transform’ children’s hospital food.
Sophie Fairall, a child who underwent chemotherapy, found food in hospital was often off-putting, with meals arriving when she was too ill to eat, and food wasn’t available out of hours.
In response to this and in support of Charlotte Fairall of Sophie’s Legacy, the team improved the quality, flexibility and appeal of meals, ensuring children receive nutritious and enjoyable food.
The books provide a delicious child-friendly, age-appropriate recipe bank and source of information for staff, including paediatric food service portion sizes, out-of-hours snacking ideas and feeding for different age groups.
In a recent interview, the team’s development chef Leanne Turk said: “The new book is tailored to what children are eating right now. It has a high street influence and will be full of nutritious, delicious recipes children in hospital will enjoy.”
The books provide chefs and healthcare professionals with resources to bring to work to encourage positive change, with the view that hospital food is an opportunity to nourish patients and encourage a faster recovery.
The team’s culinary ambassador Nick Vadis added: “The recipes in this book are very insight driven, offering chefs a what’s hot and what’s not with regards to children’s meals. We’ll be featuring dishes such as a tasty katsu curry burger.
“It also offers trusts more detail around portion control, as we know this plays heavily into food waste in hospital kitchens and means a lot less food is consumed by the children on the ward. We’ve been working hard to support trusts in reducing their waste from the conceptual stage, before they even start making their food orders or prepping and cooking meals in their kitchens.”
