Why does Hospital food get such negative reactions? This was a core question asked by the gathering of catering and hospitality professionals at a recent Catering Managment Association of Ireland (CMAI) Seminar that Charlotte Crowe, Senior Catering Consultant with Three Qattended. 

Margaret Kenny president of the CMAI opened the questions out to the floor on how the members could actively engage with the public and hospital users to answer this very important question and to change perceptions and experiences of hospital food. 

Dr. Hilary Dunne, CEO of The Irish Society for Quality & Safety in Healthcare then presented her findings from the societies 2010 largest ever survey of patients experience of Inpatient care in an acute hospital setting.  Hospitality was an aspect of this survey and the finding’s made for interesting findings.  The direct experience of those in hospitals seems to be better than the wider perception on hospital foods with issues around choice, time of service and food standards coming up as concerns for patients. 

The CMAI are actively engaging with the Minister for Health’s department on how to communicate and engage with hospital users to address both perception and experiential concerns about the quality of food they experience in hospitals.  Michelle Conaghan Business Development Manager at Avvio offered some social media avenues that hospitals at a local level could use to present their food, their services and their commitment to quality to the public and service users.  Contributions were made by a number of catering managers and were noted by Mary Moriarty CMAI committee member.  

The CMAI again confirmed their commitment to addressing this matter and urged it’s members to continue their efforts at local level also. Pictures are of CMAI president, crowd and one of the exhibitors for soft foods and the moulds they use for creating food back into original form.