Announcing the publication today of the Hospital Food Standards Panel’s report, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said its recommendations would be ‘legally binding’ on all hospitals.
And the release of the latest PLACE data offers new feedback from patients to help guide NHS Trusts in making service improvements.
Andy Jones, HCA chairman, said: “We warmly welcome the new Hospital Food Plan and the PLACE inspection system which fully integrates patients in the assessment process.
“The plan embeds some of what the HCA has developed, led on and campaigned for, including Protected Meal Times to be made compulsory by the Government in all hospitals and for more help to be provided for patients who need assistance to eat.
"However we have to ensure that the plan is delivered and communicated correctly. Firstly, all chief executives must make the plan a board issue, which is reported on and updated at least every three months.
“And secondly that all caterers deliver the plan and show that our service is there to meet the needs of the patients, staff and visitors, in all hospital food across NHS Trusts and other healthcare centres in England.
“While I believe patient involvement is essential to providing a more accurate perspective on food, drink and general catering services and identifying where improvements should be made, we must not allow ourselves to become distracted by overly-focusing on scoring and league tables.
“It is key that our menus and beverage choice meet and are suitable for the patient groups we serve as well as being flexible in both their offering and adaptability.
“The advantage of the PLACE data is that it enables us to take a step back and explore in-depth patient feedback on specific aspects of the service and to work with the patients on those individual areas that have been identified as weaker.
"But PLACE scores should not be used as yet another stick, but as 'the carrot' to catalyse continuous, quality improvements.
“However, in order to achieve that across the board, a view needs to be taken about how some of the catering service is managed in future, such as night time ward snacks and drinks, as these fall under ward budgets and are outside of the caterer’s area of responsibility.
“In order to improve the quality of all aspects of patient food and drink provision, the caterer should be allowed to take responsibility for the whole of the ward service.
“What the Hospital Food Plan clearly shows is that because of the multi-disciplinary nature of a patient’s nutritional care, we must continue to work across all departments to ensure consistency and support for a patient’s total food and drink provision.
“For example, we need to encourage Trusts to seek CQUIN payments to help fund improvements to areas where we need to raise standards.
“Consequently there is a need for greater understanding of the wider challenges of producing and delivering food to patients on our hospital wards. In order for nutritional care to be more ‘personalised’ to an individual patient, it is important for all members of the clinical care team as well as caterers to recognise the role that it can make to improving the patient’s clinical outcome and to embed food and drink as part of the patient’s recovery plan."