What is it about?
Food and catering account for 6% of the NHS carbon footprint, so increasing sustainability of food in healthcare settings is a priority. The work described in this paper targeted reduction of beef consumption, increasing vegetarian meals, and tackling recycling of food packaging.
Featured Image
Photo by Victoria Shes on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This is the first paper to report implementing such changes to patient menus. We saw a four fold increase in patients choosing vegetarian meals, and feedback suggested the patient rating of meal choice and flavour both improved. This can be used as evidence that improvements to food sustainability can be implemented and are acceptable to patients.
Perspectives
My hope is that this work will inspire everyone involved in healthcare catering to do this. It is adaptable to any healthcare setting from day centres to community hospitals to care homes. We can take better care of the planet and increase patient enjoyment of their food at the same time.
Suzy Moody
Kingston University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Enhancing food sustainability in the acute hospital setting – a nurse-led study of patient food, British Journal of Nursing, October 2024, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjon.2024.0273.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
