Derriford Hospital's new patient menu receives the thumbs up

To mark the introduction of a new menu at Derriford Hospital, patients, visitors, staff and the public were offered free samples in the main entrance earlier this month.

After a recent review by the Trusts Patient Feeding Group, the hospital developed the new menu from scratch with a view to a offering a selection of food that better meets the needs of patients.

The review included nutritional assessment of recipes and dietary coding of the menu to ensure patients are able to make informed choices, a review of the full list of dishes available and tasting sessions for all new dishes by members of the group and ward staff.

The compilation of the menu took into account quality, nutritional content, taste, appearance, colour, texture and cost.

An integral part of the review involved the hospital's dieticians who checked that all the selected dishes comply with the standards laid down in the Nutrition and Hydration Digest: Improving Outcomes through Food and Beverage Service, particularly in terms of meeting the nutritional recommendations for healthier eating for those people who are nutritionally unwell and the recommendations for higher energy dishes, suitable for people who are nutritionally vulnerable.

Here is what those who tasted the samples had to say…

• Very tasty and thoroughly enjoyable, very nice food
• Very nice, tasty food
• Very nice thanks!!!
• Very tasty vegetable shepherd pie – lucky patients!
• Good soup, nice flavour!
• Steak and mushroom pie was lovely. Very tasty
• The soup was very nice
• Really nice mushroom omelet and carrot and swede mash. Enjoyed it very much!
• Quorn cottage pie and mash was very tasty. If it is as nutritious as it tasted I will be a happy patient
• Looks tempting, tastes good
• Better taste, very good thank you
• Pea and ham soup – good flavour and consistency. Quorn cottage pie and cheddar mash very tasty
• Lovely and very hot, which is how I like my food
• Excellent meal, steak and kidney pie, carrot and swede and cheesy mash. Apple crumble and custard delicious
• Great food, great filling and tasty
• Raspberry pie was beautiful but it was a bit strong
• The apple crumble was nice but the chunks of apple were too big
• Soup was tasty thanks
• Faggotts very tasty, hopefully not too much salt and sugar! Chicken a little bland but easy to eat
• Very wonderful food! Nice and tasty
• Faggots need more seasoning. Mash very good
• Steak and kidney pie very good and tasty
• The food looked appetizing and well presented. Very nice indeed
• Very nice, lots of choice
• Delicious
• Lovely choices, shall tell my husband just how good it is
• Very tasty – when can they deliver?
• Had gammon and mash, very tasty
• The mash was very creamy and the cheese didn’t overpower it
• Faggots were lovely and tender but a bit too peppery
• The gammon was nice and rich. The chips needed more salt
• Packet products were brilliant

Marking the success of the day, Liz McGuffog, Service Lead for Hotel Services said: "The Trust is keen to involve the public in our ongoing work to review and enhance the patient catering service and to publicise how we are responding to their feedback.

"A public tasting of the new dishes was held in the hospital main entrance on the same day as the menu went live and those who tried the dishes on the day, as you can see, were very positive."