Catering for patients: a follow-up report 
podcast transcript

Simon: Hello, we’re here today to talk to Roddy Ferguson, who’s the project manager in charge of Audit Scotland’s latest report, Catering for patients.  OK Roddy, what is this report about?

Roddy:  This report follows up on recommendations from a baseline study we carried out in 2003.  It identifies areas where there have been improvements over the past few years and also points to areas where further action is necessary in hospital catering.

Simon:  And what have you found?

Roddy:  Hospital catering services are improving patients have more choice and the NHS is getting better at responding to their preferences but health boards still need to focus more on nutritional care of patients making sure they’re screened when they’re admitted to hospital.  Over the past three years NHS boards have improved the level of choice and the food they’re giving patients.  They now give different portion sizes, they cater for different diets such as vegetarians, vegans and people from ethnic minorities and they give patients flexibility to choose what they want to eat closer to meal times.  They’ve also been quite successful in reducing the amount of food that’s wasted and now have better information to control their costs.  

Simon:  Why did you do this report?  What is so important about hospital food?

Roddy:  Hospital food is key to the nutritional care of patients while they’re in hospital - it helps them to get better.  Mealtimes also play an important social role and they contribute to the well-being of patients while they’re in hospital.

Simon:  What would you like to see happen now as a result of the findings of your report?

Roddy:  We’ve made a number of recommendations for NHS boards and for the Scottish Executive.  These focus on making sure that boards take action to improve the nutritional care of patients and also that they prioritise gathering patients views to further improve services through catering.  

Simon: Can you just explain a little bit about what you mean by “nutritional care” and what needs to be done in that area?

Roddy:  Nutritional care is making sure that patients get the right balance of food while they’re in hospital to help them recover and ensure that they stay healthy while they’re in hospital. Breaking that down a bit, what we’d like to see happen is nutritional screening of patients when they go into hospital to make sure that they know when patients are at risk of malnutrition or under-nutrition and can modify their diets in accordance with that.  It’s also about making sure that hospitals use standardised menus to control the ingredients that are in the food and that they analyse the entire menus to make sure that there’s a balance of nutrients getting into patients.

Simon: You said at the beginning that this was a follow-up to a report that you did in 2003.  Judging from the report there appears to have been a number of improvements since 2003.  Is it a fair assessment to say things have got better?

Roddy:  Yes, hospital catering services are improving.  Patients have more choice and the NHS is getting better at responding to their preferences but we have identified that health boards have to do more to focus on making sure that patients are getting the nutritional care they need.  We have reported where progress has been made but we’ve also highlighted 11 recommendations for future action by both the executive and by health boards.  

Simon: In your report you say that boards now have better information to help them control their costs in catering yet you’ve also found that catering costs have risen by a third since Audit Scotland first looked at this in 2003.  Could you explain a little bit further what’s happening there?

Roddy:  The NHS in Scotland uses national contracts to help it control the costs of ingredients bought this had reflected in our finding that the average cost of food per patient per day has remained stable since we last looked at this three years ago.  However, staff costs have risen significantly over that time due mainly to the introduction of the low pay agreement which set a minimum wage for catering staff and also changed the powers that overtime kicked in at.  However, boards have organised trading accounts just this year and these should help their future ability to monitor and control costs.

Simon: Thanks for your time Roddy.