Designed by the Institute of Hospitality, the Level 2 Award in Professional Cookery in Health and Social Care has been created in association with the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA) and National Association of Care Catering (NACC).
Targeting people who cater for patients and residents in a health and social care setting, it covers the importance of nutrition, hydration and maintaining health and wellbeing as well as the needs of dysphagia sufferers and how the condition impacts diets and menus.
HIT has also worked ‘closely’ with development chefs at mental healthcare charity, St Andrew’s Healthcare to “tailor the programme to meet its precise needs.”
Principal of HIT Training’s chef academy, Paul Mannering, commented: “It’s fantastic to see an employer invest in its chefs and help them to strengthen their repertoire with a specific discipline.
“Catering for those with dysphagia is a hugely important skill to have in a health and social care setting. Not least having the additional skills to prepare dysphagic food in an attractive way, exploring creative use of textures to give patients and residents greater visual recognition and enjoyment of their food.
“We’re immensely excited by this partnership with St Andrew’s. By tapping into the expertise of its existing chefs, we have created a highly practical and relevant training programme specifically designed to meet the development needs of their business.
“We encourage others in this sector to follow St Andrew’s lead – training is a great way to strengthen a business’ offering by upskilling its employees and in turn, benefit from the positive ripple effect this has on employee attraction and retention rates.”
Vicky Wheatley, learning and development manager at St Andrew’s Healthcare, added: “Working in a mental health setting, we’re delighted to be able to offer our chefs vital knowledge and expertise around dysphagia, which isn’t available through most other training programmes.
“HIT Training has worked closely with us to understand our training requirements and offer us a bespoke programme.
“This qualification is invaluable to us - it will enable the charity to provide a specialist catering service that gives our chefs the flexibility to stretch their creative muscles and prepare meals with fresh ingredients, with the confidence that they’re meeting the individual needs of our residents.”