The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have celebrated their second year of award-winning meals with the renewal of their Food for Life Served Here award from the Soil Association, the UK’s leading food and farming charity. They were awarded for their patient, visitor and staff meals in 2017 and have shown their continued commitment to providing fresh, ethical and more sustainable meals this year.
Providing nutritious, well prepared meals forms an essential part of patient care. Food for Life Served Here Award holders prove that they maintain high standards of ingredient traceability, freshness and provenance in a rigorous on-site inspection.
Catered in-house, The Royal Marsden serve 1,250 freshly prepared meals each day across their Sutton and Chelsea sites. Having gained achievements such as the Good Egg Award, the team wanted to go further and accredit the food served across their menus. In achieving the silver Food for Life Served Here award for patient meals, the Trust shows their dedication to supporting local producers and making healthy eating easier for patients. Additionally, by serving at least 5% organic ingredients, the Trust is supporting higher levels of animal welfare, lower levels of pesticides, no manufactured herbicides or artificial fertilisers, and more environmentally sustainable management of farmland and the natural environment, which leads to more wildlife.
Commenting on their achievement, Denise Satterthwaite, Catering Operations Manager at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust says: ‘We now have recognition for our hard work and receive more recognition across the Trust for our efforts in healthy and sustainable food. The award verifies that we are a valued part of the team that care for our cancer patients’.
Dr Susannah McWilliam, Hospitals Program Manager, Food for Life, says: ‘The Royal Marsden places food at the heart of great care for its patients, and in supporting the health and wellbeing of its staff and visitors. We are delighted that for the second year, the Trust has demonstrated its commitment to freshly made, sustainable and nutritious food through the achievement of the Food for Life Served Here award, and congratulations to the team who have worked so hard to continue this good work.’
Dominic Gunn, Head of Catering at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust says: ‘The catering team are immensely proud of achieving the Food for Life Served Here award. A great deal of hard work is put in to ensure that the high standards and quality food that is served here at The Royal Marsden Hospitals for the direct benefit of all our patients, staff and visitors is deservedly and properly recognised. It is vitally important that our consumers can have confidence that the food they are provided with is freshly prepared and uses ethically, environmentally friendly and local ingredients to aid making healthy eating easier to achieve.’