Food and hydration provision assessments carried out across healthcare sites in England between March and June 2017 increased by 1.4% on average, at national level, compared to last year.
Stewart McKenzie (left), chair of the HCA and site facilities manager at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, said: “It’s great to see that scores for the food and hydration domain of the PLACE assessments have increased since last year.
“The data in the 2017 report, shows positive improvement in not only the overall food and hydration scores but also in the organisation questions and food at ward level assessments.
The national average score for food overall was 89.7% based on both organisational and ward assessment scorecards, which are used to gather the data.
A total of 2,045 food assessments were undertaken in the period at sites where meals are provided by the hospital (1,167 sites).
“The national average score for food organisation was 88.8%, 1.8 percentage points higher than 2016, and for ward food it was 90.2%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared to last year,” said McKenzie.
The PLACE assessments are an annual appraisal of the non-clinical aspects of NHS and independent or private healthcare settings, identified as important by patients and the public.
The assessments are undertaken by teams made up of staff and members of the public, known as patient assessors. The team must include a minimum of 50% patient assessors.
The PLACE programme replaced the Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) assessments, which ran from 2000 to 2012.
McKenzie added: “We set high guidelines as we believe in promoting best practice and I am immensely proud to see the hard work of healthcare catering teams throughout England being recognised by the people we serve, patients.
"This data allows us to see where catering teams are performing well and where there may be areas for improvement to ensure patients are always receiving the highest quality of care.”