Steamplicity East Sussex

Background /

As part of the Trust’s continued efforts to provide a consistent quality of patient experience, both hospitals chose to switch their meal service to Steamplicity to offer greater choice and menu variety for their patients. Steamplicity has allowed patients to have more independence, choice and control with regards to their meals.

The previous meal service provided by the Trust‘s in-house catering team was a bulk service produced within a Central Production Unit. It was one of the Trust’s main priorities to ensure that the completely new meal service was mobilised smoothly into both hospital sites.

How was the decision made? /

Showcases was carried out to introduce the Steamplicity range the food and panelled by key stakeholders which included departments such, the Trust Board, Finance, Facilities, Dietetics, Nursing, Operations, as well as Speech and Language. This was followed by two visits to client reference sites were made to see how the plated meal service is run at a similar site.

Mobilisation /

Regular meetings were arranged to discuss operations to support both parties during the mobilisation. Both hospitals were mobilised over a two week period to maximise the Trust’s and Steamplicity’s resources.

The hospitals’ HACCP system was adapted to accommodate the cooking that would be done at ward level after the mobilisation. This was shared and endorsed by each hospital’s local Environmental Health teams.

Several training sessions were carried out on each site prior to mobilisation by the Steamplicity team. This involved a ‘train the trainer’ program where on-site training champions were appointed to carry out any further sessions that were needed.

Both hospitals were mobilised over two weeks. Several training sessions were carried out on each site prior to mobilisation by the Steamplicity team.

Our patient satisfaction levels have significantly increased with over 98% of patients asked being satisfied with both choice and quality of meals provided. The Trust are also been able to better manage their provisions budgets.

This new style service allows patients to order their meals just before each meal service and means that we only send meals from the main kitchen that patient’s request. This has brought our wastage at ward level from 9% down to less than 1%.

Through implementing strict controls in our main kitchen we have also reduced our unserved meal waste down to 4-5%.