Project CHEF pilot kicks off at Bowral & District Hospital

On Tuesday 11 May, the Project CHEF (Co-Designing Healthy and Enjoyable Food) Pilot launched at Bowral & District Hospital.

Date published: 29 Jun 2021

Author: Jessica Drewery

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Project CHEF was initiated to move towards a more patient-centred model of food services for public hospitals in NSW. The model focuses on flexible mealtimes, enabling patients to eat when they’re hungry by submitting orders via their mobile device to a dedicated call centre. They also have access to a customisable menu where patients can choose individual meal components.

The menu for the pilot includes some exciting new food choices, including a chicken schnitzel burger, mild yellow curry, Caesar salad and roast of the day, just to name a few.

“Getting to this point in our food service reform journey with the pilot launch at Bowral & District is a huge milestone for improving the patient experience, which is our North Star objective for the whole CHEF project,” said Amitha Mather, A/Associate Director Food Service Reform.

“The feedback on the program so far has been overwhelmingly positive and patients are loving the ability to customise their food, eat when they want and are enjoying the aroma and presentation of meals that are assembled at the time of ordering.”

“One of the key callouts has been the ability to order breakfast at a later time, as well as selecting from items such as a build your own breakfast and raisin toast with butter,” said Amitha.

Project CHEF has been a collaborative effort between HealthShare NSW, the South Western Sydney Local Health District, consumers, industry experts and expert advisory groups.

Ken Barnett, General Manager Bowral & District Hospital said, “I think for the whole health system we’ve struggled for some years to improve the patient experience around our meal services so this initiative has given us the opportunity to work with clinicians, HealthShare NSW, some of our consumer groups and directly with patients to get their feedback from the services we’ve implemented.”

“The feedback has been excellent, patients are really happy with the choice and flexibility in ordering their meals, and I think the difference it’s made to their experience has been tremendous,” said Ken.

The change of model has been a significant process for the Bowral & District hospital food services team, who have been learning new skills in the kitchen compared to the traditional food model.

“I am so proud of the efforts of the entire Food Services team who has taken everything in their stride to embrace an entirely new way of working,” said Kerry Garufi, Acting Sector Manager South Western Sydney.

“They are loving the variety of tasks they have in their day and working with new equipment, meal products and processes.”

In addition to the changes in the kitchen, Customer Service has established a new, dedicated call centre team in the Newcastle Service Centre to process orders from the patients.

“It has been great working on Project CHEF and providing a new service for our customers by standing up a dedicated CHEF call centre,” said Phil Pogson, Customer Experience Manager.

“The call centre team are really enjoying working on this exciting new project and contributing directly towards improving the patient experience by engaging directly with patients and helping them to select meals that are compliant with their diets.”

The Project CHEF model focuses on sustainable food service practices and anecdotal evidence so far has demonstrated a decrease in food waste since launching the pilot. “Our Food Service Assistants feel so happy to collect empty meals trays from the patients, as it reinforces the high quality and flavour of the food we are preparing,” said Kerry.

The pilot at Bowral & District Hospital will continue for a period of six months, where we will regularly track patient experience and safety, environmental and financial sustainability measures to help evaluate the success of the food service model for the future.

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