St. Christopher's Hospice partnered with Host Management 9 years ago to provide catering and hospitality services. Originally serving ward meals via hot trolleys, Host Management now operates a café open daily serving meals café-style to encourage community involvement. They also implemented a touchscreen ordering system allowing patients to order meals for delivery to their rooms on demand, improving nutrition and reducing waste. The teams work to make mealtimes fun and enjoyable for patients in the hospice.

1. Changing the perception of food....
Care
Tomorrow’s
St Christopher’s Hospice
in partnership with Host
Management

3. Host Management, started working with St
Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham over nine
years ago. During that time, a real sense of
partnership and trust has developed between the
two organisations. A hospice is a challenging
environment to work in but one that fosters
incredible team spirit and provides high levels of
satisfaction to those involved. St Christopher’s exists
to promote and provide skilled and compassionate
palliative care of the highest quality.
Part of that care is the catering and hospitality
service provided to patients, staff and visitors and
this is where Host Management comes in. Up until
five years ago, the catering service was essentially
ward catering via hot trolleys. However, since
2009, when St Christopher’s opened its Anniversary
Centre, the catering service has also included a
coffee shop and other facilities.
Nigel Hartley, Director of Supportive Care at St
Christopher’s explained:
“One of our aims is to
change public perceptions
associated with hospices and
dying, so when we had the
opportunity to open this café,
we wanted to make sure it
involved the community too
and could act as a hub for
local people to get involved.”
“We have a weekly programme to encourage
the local community into the building, which
includes curry and pizza nights, a community choir
and a ‘Death Chat’ group. The primary role is to
provide a service to patients, family members,
bereaved people and visitors, but the café actively
encourages local people to use it too. For patients
and their visitors, it also helps make their experience
as normal and comfortable as possible.”
Providing good nutrition is vital
in any care setting. In hospices,
where many residents are often ill
and off their food, care providers
need to get creative at meal
times. At St Christopher’s Hospice,
Host Management has taken
inspiration from luxury hotels.
St Christopher’s Hospice & Host

4. The café is open all day from 8am in the morning
until 10pm in the evening, serving breakfast, lunch
and tea and the focus is on healthy, fresh and
seasonal café-style food. Sundays are also a
special day when patients, family and friends can
enjoy a traditional Sunday lunch surrounded by
other people.
“The challenge with this system was two-fold
maintaining the consistency of food quality and
presentation when it may have been kept hot for
a long period of time, and secondly, patients who
are unwell often don’t want to eat pre-determined
meals at set times. With 48 patients, we believed
that we could run meal times more along the lines
of hotel room service whereby patients could
eat what they wanted, when they wanted.” The
challenge, however, was how to provide this type
of service efficiently. Modern technology was
the catalyst for change. The Host chefs were able
to provide a call order service, but first a system
had to be put in place to simplify communications
between the ward and the kitchen.
Paul Blacker, Host’s Operations Manager, said:
“The ultimate solution
we opted for was part
technology, part manual.
We’ve located a touch
screen in every ward,
which enables orders to
be placed directly with the
kitchen. Patients are given a
lightweight aluminium case
containing the menu and they
decide what they would like
to eat and at what time, and
the order is then sent to the
kitchen.
Host has worked closely with Nigel
and his team to modernise the
meals on offer to patients. The
original inpatient meal service
was distributed by ward staff from
heated trolleys and these were
served at set times but, according
to Nigel, this didn’t meet the needs
of the patients well enough:

5. Vera Mirescu is Host’s Catering Manager at
St Christopher’s. Vera started working there
in 2009 and is also an integral part of Nigel’s
team. According to Host’s Paul Blacker, “Vera
works tirelessly to make sure the catering at St
Christopher’s helps provide the type of calming
environment that the hospice aims to create.
In 2013, Vera’s exemplary efforts were recognised
when she won Caterer magazine’s Extra Mile Award
at their inaugural Food service Catey Awards. “We
really have an incredible team of people in the
catering department at St Christopher’s, and Vera
leads by example all the way,”
“Our team is made up of a unique blend of people
who are always coming up with new ideas to
add fun and interest to mealtimes. Whether
that is with the weekly curry night, special pizza
nights or summer barbecues, Vera and the team
like to bring a sense of fun and enjoyment to
meal experiences. It can be tough emotionally
to work in this environment, but they are a truly
compassionate group of people who take such
pride in their work.”
Order to delivery takes 25 minutes
and the result is a freshly prepared
dish that is exactly what the
patient is in the mood for.” The
reality for many patients is that
when they feel unwell, most seek
comfort food that is easy on the
palate like lasagne, casseroles, or
even scrambled eggs with toast.
The new system enables them to
have this, which also means that
Host has cut food wastage in the
process.

6. Please feel free to get in touch
halcyon.day@hostmgt.com / 01730 897 071.
Alternatively, contact Andrew Scott, Director,
andrew.scott@hostmgt.com / 07917 601 545
Thank you for taking the time to review our article from Tomorrow’s Care.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our partnership with St. Christopher’s
Hospice and what we have achieved over recent years.
We also cater for a number of care and nursing Homes including Lilian
Faithful in Cheltenham and the Royal British Legion village in Kent.
We work with our homes to ensure the menus and meals times are not
merely routine parts of the day but important and enjoyable highlights for
each resident.
We would really like to meet with you and understand your catering needs
to see where we could add value and manage your costs more effectively.
Regards
Andrew Scott.
Director

8. www.hostmgt.com
Tel: 01730 897071 | Email: halcyon.day@hostmgt.com
Address: Liss House, Station Road, Liss, Hampshire,
GU33 7AD
St Christopher’s Hospice
partnership with Host
Management
Care
Tomorrow’s