Life at Nottingham City Hospital's catering department continues to move at a rapid pace. Catering budgets have been cut by £70,000 for the year ahead, a new Coffee City outlet is due to open early next month and staff changes are imminent.
The restaurant kitchen is now closed, which has put pressure on the hospital's burgeoning functions and events business, but which has also eliminated overtime across the catering department. According to catering manager John Hughes, it's freed up human resources in the department and made huge cost and energy savings.
Meanwhile, the catering team's policy to train and promote within the department means staff have become an attractive commodity to employers elsewhere. Both the food service manager and the duty supervisor are moving on, a development which Hughes sees as an opportune moment to rethink the strategy of the department.
"This is an opportunity to look at the whole dynamics of our team," he says. I've had to have a hard look at the business and where we're going with it. I haven't liked everything I've seen, either. We are now fundamentally a retail business with food provision a part of that. Three years ago the opposite was true."
First on Hughes's to-do list is the hospital's functions and events business, which has doubled in size over the last three years. A new functions brochure is currently at the printers, and Hughes is keen to find the money for new equipment for the team to make the business more effective and professional.
Hughes's in-house snack-shop chain, Coffee City, will expand to four outlets in August, when the new national breast-screening centre opens. Beyond this, however, Hughes sees room for only one or two more outlets despite the opening of a new renal unit, cardiology block and urology centre. Despite the limitations of the hospital's size, however, Hughes maintains the importance of retail.
"Retail opportunities in this financial environment must be looked on as a commercial activity. We mustn't squander these chances," he says. "My biggest criticism of the NHS is that because every hospital trust is separate, we waste a lot of opportunities to make money by not having a centralised retail strategy."
So far Hughes's retail efforts have allowed the catering department to stay ahead of budget, but the combined effect of the Government's cost-saving efficiency gain (ie, budget cut) and inflation means its budget has been slashed by £70,000.
Innovations are still coming thick and fast in Nottingham City Hospital's retail business, however. A sandwich range with new fillings and packaging is about to be put into the Coffee City outlets, as well as new bakery products.
"We've got lots of initiatives but the lack of money means we can't do them all," Hughes says. "This year is the hardest I've seen yet. We're constantly trying to find new ways to do things, though, and not get bogged down in the details."
One thing the hospital does have is a supportive management team backing the catering department. According to Hughes, this has allowed the catering department to get as far as it has. "If it hasn't got needles attached to it, she's running it," says Hughes of Christine Goldstraw, director of facilities and nutrition.
Goldstraw was also responsible for building closer links between the dietetics team and the catering department, a union pretty rare within the NHS. "We've come a long way because the hospital lets us think ahead," Hughes says. "We're allowed to take a longer-term view of things."
FACTFILE
NOTTINGHAM CITY HOSPITAL
Hucknall Road, Nottingham NG5 1PB
Tel: 0115 969 1169
Catering manager: John Hughes
Patient meals a day: about 3,200 (1,000-bed hospital)
Daily budget per patient: £2.50 (includes three meals, drinks, snacks)
Investment in new kitchen (including temporary kitchen during building): £850,000
Number of staff: 65, including 12 chefs
Number of Coffee City outlets: three; fourth opening second week in August
Coffee City turnover 2001: £300,000
Coffee City turnover 2002: £450,000
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THE STORY SO FAR
In September 2002 Nottingham City Hospital invested in a new kitchen to provide the 3,200 meals to feed patients every day. The kitchen cost £850,000 and replaced the hospital's two former kitchens.
Since then, catering manager John Hughes has not only overseen the redesign of the kitchen facilities but has remained firmly at the helm of the modernised operation, providing better food for patients and boosting funding through an innovative in-house snack-shop chain, Coffee City.