Electronic patient meals ordering system

The growing pressures on NHS Trusts to reduce costs while improving patient care requires Trusts to identify efficiencies to current processes and utilise existing resources to deliver the savings required.

Investing in an electronic meal ordering system not only supports significant savings but also patient experience improvements, wastage reductions and improved patient nutrition.

Scope - To replace the current manual paper based food ordering process with a digital food ordering process.

Objectives - Give every patient the meal they ordered.

Reduce the amount of food waste.

Reduce the amount of ad hoc meals ordered.

Improve efficiency of meal ordering process.

Provide a cost-effective, value for money meal ordering service, ensuring patients receive their meal of choice without unnecessary wastage.

Speed - meal orders to be placed quickly; meal selections made 1 meal in advance.

Less waste - timely meal selection resulting in food waste reductions.

Improved Patient Experience.

Greater menu choice to suit appetite.

Health - when linked to the patient administration system, dieticians can review patient meal choices and make any adjustments necessary for the patient's best recovery.

Menu Collation and Analysis - with full dietary analysis package.

Cook Chill/Freeze Production - support meal types and service via best fit containers; multi-portion planning.

Stock Control - control of minimum and maximum stock levels, ordering to be based upon actual consumption, stock recording for speed and accuracy.

Management Reporting - includes: patient feeding cost per day per ward, location and department costs including ward issues and service wastage reports.

The electronic system will hold additional information about the menu items, such as allergens or special meal requirements.

Please provide full details of previous projects where an electronic patient meals ordering system has been introduced into NHS hospitals with full costings and include training and implementation information to hugh.mcdermott1@nhs.net