Food & Nutrition
Food and nutrition are so often reported on negatively in the press, but at Caring Homes we place real pride and value on the importance of food, nutrition and the social opportunities offered at meal times.
In every Caring Home you will find meals prepared by qualified chefs as opposed to cooks.
When recruiting for Chefs, we endeavour to recruit Chef’s who have a wide range of experience and expertise gained from the hospitality trade, with many of our chefs coming from prestigious hotels and restaurants. One of the reasons for this is the recognition of “Residents” as “Customers”, something which we believe is often over-looked in a care home setting.
Understanding residents as Customers changes the focus of what our Chefs do, they recognise that they are there to facilitate one of the most important aspects in an elderly persons life, particularly when an elderly resident is frail or has complex health needs rendering them unable to pursue outdoor pursuits, trips etc.
Each of our Chef’s is charged with developing menus that promote choice for all mealtimes, whilst working with the clinical teams to be sure that the choices offered represent a wholesome extension to a person’s care plan and meet their nutritional needs.
Mealtimes are seen as an occasion and an opportunity for people to engage socially, for those who prefer the peace and quiet of their own company room service can be facilitated.
However mealtimes are important and for those residents wishing to engage in conversation and enjoy the social aspects of mealtimes, we do try to make this a special occasion at every mealtime.
Our hospitality services department ensures that training is delivered to all hospitality based staff in laying and waiting tables professionally.
Our chefs also benefit from additional training and development opportunities and a series of “regional chef days” and “regional chef competitions” take place throughout the year – these days promote a great deal of healthy internal competition, and those chef’s who make it through and win our regional chef competitions are supported to engage in external competitions, some having won some significant accolades over the past couple of years.
With consistent quality being integral to all that we do, we also employ a peripatetic chef team to support our homes at times where they own chef may be engaged in training and development, may be on annual leave or going through a period of sickness, it is this way that we can ensure that our residents do not experience a down-turn in quality as a result of an agency chef being needed.
