The catering team at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth are so proud of the meals delivered to patients; they’ve invited the public in to enjoy them. In a bid to dispel the myth that hospital food is unpalatable - particularly among those that haven’t tasted it recently – samples of the day’s menu were offered to the public.

Dishes of the day included Chef’s Fish Pie, Roast Chicken Breast in Gravy, Savoury Cheese Pie and Rhubarb Crumble & Custard! The piping hot reception from Plymouth locals tempers the recent ‘Which?’ report (17/12/07) slamming the quality of hospital food.

The report highlighted that in some cases meals simply aren’t being eaten. It’s a case of making meals tasty…offering real appetite-appeal. Derriford’s team works closely with meal supplier apetito to ensure that dishes look and taste good, offering comforting food– with the nutritional elements taken care of. Part of the partnership means revising the menus to constantly improve the patient experience and ensure that the right meal range is available.

In line with the introduction of the Better Hospital Food Programme in 2001, Derriford Hospital in Plymouth took steps to readdress its own patient cooking services – to ensure consistently high standards of food provision within the healthcare setting.

Historically, patient meals at the hospital were supplied by a company providing meals in a cook-chill format. On reviewing the service, Stuart Oxenham, Director of Facilities, recommended a switch to a cook-freeze system, in order to optimise quality, convenience and ease of regeneration.

Oxenham explains: “Our aim is to provide our patients with nutritious and tasty meals of the highest standards within both the parameters of NHS budgets and the logistics of distributing hot meals to the wards. It seemed a logical step to switch to a cook-freeze operation to enable us to simplify the regeneration process and at the same time improve the quality of the meals.”

As one of the UK’s leading suppliers of cook-freeze meals to the health sector, Oxenham turned to apetito to supply over 90% of the patient meals - amounting to almost 2,000 hot meals per day.

 “With an extensive product portfolio of nutritionally balanced meals available from apetito we are able to offer our patients a varied menu which changes weekly. The traditional roast dinners are always very popular with our patients and classic dessert favourites such as Sticky Toffee Pudding and fruity Rhubarb Crumble are always winners! Whatever the dish, with cook freeze meals, we know that after regeneration, the food will always look appetising on the plate” continues Oxenham.

Rosemarie Hoyle, Divisional Manager for apetito Healthcare says: “We are delighted to be working so closely with Stuart Oxenham and Derriford Hospital to help them deliver a premium service. As a company, we pride ourselves in not only offering first class meals for patients but also the systems and operational support that enables our customers to deliver a great service.“

Frozen at the point of preparation to lock in optimal nutritional value and taste, apetito meals offer complete convenience and are stored centrally upon delivery, prior to transportation to wards in mobile trolleys at meal times.

Oxenham continues: “As meals are heated at the ward level in ‘hostess trolleys’ when required, patients are always guaranteed to receive a hot meal at its nutritional peak. This method of reheating, coupled with the use of two portion meals from apetito minimises wastage and reduces costs - which is good news for us and NHS budgets!”

When providing a catering provision within the hospital setting, where many patients have a reduced ability to fight infections, it is critical that high levels of food safety are consistently adhered to and maintained.

 “Although we can never get complacent over the issue of food safety, apetito’s Foodsafe+ system coupled with the rigorous microbiological testing on each batch of meals, means we have peace of mind that our patients receive a high quality meal at its best condition time after time” says Oxenham.

For more information on the company, visit www.apetito.co.uk