Hospital receives 5 Stars in Food Rating

24 January 2012

The Catering Department provides a wide variety of meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner for patients, staff and delegates attending the Training Academy.   They also have overall responsibility for the Patient Kitchen in the Resource Centre and the kitchens on the hospital units.

Chris Lawrence, Head of Catering, explains how they continually strive for excellence:

"At Milton Park Hospital we pride ourselves not only on the quality of the Catering service we provide to our clients but also the standard of Food Hygiene and in particular our kitchen and sub kitchens. I myself (Head of Catering) have qualified in Advanced Food Hygiene and am also part of the Infection control team at Milton Park Hospital.

I have always had a passion to deliver the highest possible standards of hygiene within my department in order to produce and deliver great quality food; and this is also evident within my team members.  The Catering department has very effective systems and procedures in place to ensure this and a very proud team who are keen to keep their working environment as clean as possible.

We have set up a great system for our sub kitchens which works very well also we have a "league table" for each individual unit to compete against each other each month for the highest standard of hygiene each week, this has proved an effective and fun way of ensuring our high standards are continued across the site.

We are very proud to receive the highest possible award and will continue to strive for excellence".

Chris Lawrence (centre) and the Catering Team

Click here to see the certificate.  Read below for more information about the Food Rating System, included how services are rated and what they are inspected on.  Why don’t you check out your local restaurant and see how they compare?

How is a hygiene rating worked out?

A food safety officer inspects a business to check that it meets the requirements of food hygiene law. The officer is from the local authority where the business is located.
At the inspection, the officer will check:

• how hygienically the food is handled – how it is prepared, cooked, re-heated, cooled and stored
• the condition of the structure of the buildings – the cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation and other facilities
• how the business manages and records what it does to make sure food is safe

The hygiene standards found at the time of inspection are then rated on a scale. At the bottom of the scale is ‘0’ – this means urgent improvement is required. At the top of the scale is ‘5’ – this means the hygiene standards are very good.