NAOreport sparks hospital caterers league table
HOSPITAL caterers may be ranked in a league table according to the cost of their meals, the quality of their food and their level of service, it emerged last week.
The plan is being considered by NHS managers in reaction to a National Audit Office (NAO) report revealing wide disparities in meal cost and patient satisfaction between hospitals (Caterer, 21 April).
Alan Langlands, chief executive of the NHS Management Executive, told MPs a working group was looking at establishing performance indicators by which hospital caterers could be compared.
He said ratings could be drawn up for the overall cost of the catering operation, the cost of the meals themselves, the level of satisfaction among patients and factors such as menu choice, nutritional balance and training.
The plan was still very much at an embryonic stage but could be implemented next April, he added.
Mr Langlands was answering questions from members of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, who demanded reasons for some of the report's revelations.
Committee chairman Robert Sheldon, Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, wanted to know why patient meals cost more than £10 a day in some hospitals but less than £2 a day in others.
Mr Langlands said variations in cost were legitimate between "huge, sprawling hospitals and small residential settings".
He added that trying to interpret information collated from an institution as large as the NHS was extremely difficult.
However, he added that information collated from hospitals and health authorities did not always identify the cost of catering services, although systems introduced in recent months should remedy this.
Mr Langlands accepted the report's criticism that in some hospitals meals had to be ordered up to a week before their consumption date.
He said the NHS Management Executive working party was responding to the NAO report and was looking at computerised systems to recommend to hospitals to narrow the gap between ordering and delivery time.