Transforming food services for kids and their families
Date published: 26 Jul 2023
Author: Katie Harkin
For children and parents in hospital, often facing hardship and long stays, the meal experience should be the highlight of their day. Unfortunately, this hasn’t always been the case.
“Speaking to our consumers, we knew there was an opportunity to better meet the needs of our patients,” said Tim Hoffmann, Director of Redevelopment at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (SCHN).
“We also know that there's a lot of waste, with food not being eaten.”
Fortunately, there was an appetite for change. SCHN is now working closely with HealthShare NSW to design a specialty paediatric model for deployment across the Network – known as KidsCHEF.
Food as a redevelopment priority
Over the coming years, redevelopment is occurring across both hospitals, resulting in expanded and improved healthcare facilities for patients, families, and staff. Both SCHN and HealthShare NSW saw an opportunity to embed food service reform into the redevelopment process, and redesigning food services across the Network became one of the top five priorities for the SCHN redevelopment.
“Having the opportunity to be able to look at this in light of the redevelopment has been a really great platform for us to prioritise food service improvements,” said Bobbi Henao Urrego, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network Director of Allied Health.
SCHN developed a set of principles to guide their redevelopments under the overarching goal of Transforming Kids’ Health, with a focus on caring for kids and their families in a holistic way. These principles sit alongside HealthShare NSW’S Food Service Design Principles and guide the food service improvements.
“I’m focused on nutritional as well as experiential outcomes and what that means for people,” said Bobbi. “Especially for those who can't necessarily articulate what that looks like for themselves.”
SCHN and HealthShare NSW are engaging with nutrition and dietetics, other clinicians, patients, and food service staff to ensure that KidsCHEF is aligned with paediatric patient needs and can deliver a range of food service improvements across the network.
“To deliver a service differently, and to get this right over not just the next five years, but thirty years, we need investment,” said Tim.
Why food service improvements matter
SCHN are investing significant capital, time and energy into improving food services for sick children and their families, ensuring that kids are being offered food that they want to eat.
This investment in food recognises that nutrition can be a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to therapeutic outcomes. With one in five children at risk of malnutrition, and one in four children above or well above a healthy weight, getting food services right is so important to their overall nutritional and patient outcomes.
“We know how important food can be to the nutrition and overall clinical outcomes of patients,” said Melanie Frost, Associate Director Food Service Reform.
The improvements being made at SCHN follow HealthShare NSW’s successful pilot at Bowral and District Hospital, where providing more choice to patients and better meal options led to significant improvements in nutritional outcomes.
“The results of the pilot at Bowral show that giving patients more choice around what they ate, and improving the options available to them, led to a 17% increase in energy intake, an 18% increase in protein intake and a 52% reduction in food waste.”
Implementing improvements at SCHN will also mean that there will be a blueprint for paediatric patient food services.
“If we get this right, we are hopeful that it can be scaled for paediatric patients across the state,” said Melanie.
Working towards the opening of the new buildings in 2025, KidsCHEF will begin to make improvements along the way, including changes to mid-meal service coming soon. Reflecting on the partnership with HealthShare NSW, Director of Redevelopment Tim Hoffmann is clear on why all of these changes are so important.
“At the end of the day, it's all about putting control in the hands of patients and families.”
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