The story so far
Nottingham City Hospital has invested in a new kitchen to provide the 3,200 meals it needs to feed patients every day. The kitchen, which opened in September 2002, cost £850,000 and replaced the hospital's two former kitchens. Catering manager John Hughes oversaw the redesign of the kitchen facilities and is now firmly at the helm of the modernised operation.
After building a new maternity block, the hospital's management decided to convert the top floor into a 24-bedroom hotel with a restaurant attached. "It's no different from any other budget hotel, except that someone will pick you up in a wheelchair if you need one and we have nurses on reception all night," says John Hughes, the hospital's catering manager.
As well as providing a valuable extra service for patients who travel to the hospital for specialist treatment, or mothers who want to stay near help for a few days after giving birth, the hotel is also profitable. At about 60%, profit margins are about 20% lower than a "normal" budget brand, but it is nonetheless a valuable business that has already been copied by other NHS hospitals around the country.
As well as providing beds, the hotel has a fully operational kitchen and team attached. The kitchen services the hotel rooms, where meals are cooked to order, and will now be used to cater for the hospital's growing functions business.
Functions were formerly catered for by the hospital's restaurant kitchen but this was closed earlier this month because it needed major drainage work. "The kitchen was going to be phased out in about 18 months' time anyway," says Hughes. "Redoing the drainage system would have cost between £20,000 and £30,000, however, so we made the decision to close the operation now."
Although the restaurant kitchen will still be used for basic regeneration work, it can no longer cater for functions held at the hospital. And, while holding a function at your local hospital might not be the obvious choice for some, demand has almost outstripped capacity at Nottingham. Function business has doubled over the past three years, and Hughes estimates last year's turnover of £145,000 will grow another 20% this year.
The business hasn't been as profitable as Hughes would have liked, however. "We underestimated the costs behind running functions and events, which means we are going to have to review our pricing structure," he says. "Ideally we need to be achieving a 65% profit margin."
Currently the kitchen is catering for functions as big as 250 with the most expensive menus at £25.
Revenue from functions and the hotel are all welcome additions to the hospital's catering team as budgets come under ever-increasing pressure. The catering department's end-of-year results revealed that spending was about 3-4% over budget, and Hughes estimates similar figures for the year ahead.
As well as the fact that centrally set catering budgets have failed to go up in line with inflation, the Government has also imposed a "cost-saving efficiency gain" of 1.5% on the hospital. What this means is that Hughes must aim to cut expenditure by 1.5% over the year ahead. "We could extinguish our overexpenditure overnight by cutting out the Government's Better Hospital Food programme," says Hughes, "but we obviously don't want to do that."
The Better Hospital Food programme adds about 50p to the budget per patient stay. In a hospital the size of Nottingham, this equates to as much as £100,000 extra expenditure a year.
What the budgets fail to show, however, is the overall success of the catering team's innovations at Nottingham City Hospital. A recent inspection by the Government's Patient Environment Action Team inspectors gave the hospital's food a score of 100%. "I'm very proud of the team," says Hughes. "You only get 24 hours' notice before the inspectors come, so you can't hide anything."
Factfile
Nottingham City Hospital
Hucknall Road, Nottingham NGS 1PB
Tel: 0115 969 1169
Catering manager: John Hughes
Patient meals per day: about 3,200 (1,000-bed hospital)
Daily budget per patient: £2.50 (includes three meals, drinks and snacks)
Investment in new kitchen (including temporary kitchen during building): £850,000
Staff: 65, including 12 chefs