TAUNTON'S Musgrove Park Hospital is one of the tops when it comes to healthier meals on its wards.

It was placed second of all the hospitals in the whole of England by Health Business magazine.

Musgrove was praised for developing best practice initiatives in areas such as food waste reduction and making cost savings of £120,000 a year without any loss in food quality.

By moving to a same day system and working closely with its catering provider, housekeeping team and ward nurses, food waste was reduced from 21 per cent to five per cent through effective monitoring of patients’ needs and bed turnover.

A new food folder provides housekeeping staff on each ward with a greater clarity on the meals offered.

The trust that runs the hospital received a Health Business Award in 2016 for its catering department, recognising how Musgrove’s food service was rated 93 per cent for food in NHS England’s annual patient-led assessments of the care environment, which put the hospital top in the South West.

Linking with the Healthy Food Company, the hospital is now offering a new range of healthier meals on the children’s wards menus, providing the perfect balance of carbohydrates, protein and good fats for children to support them in their development.

The hospital has also committed to working closely with all food and drink outlets on site to make sure they continue to promote healthy nutritional choices, including strongly encouraging the sale of non-sugary drinks at Musgrove Park Hospital and not allowing advertisements or promotions of sugary drinks.

Hayley Peters, executive director of patient care at Musgrove Park Hospital, said: “This award really is a testament to all the hard work done by staff across the hospital to make sure our patients get the best possible food and drink served to them.

"Here at Musgrove we have created a culture of catering being everyone’s responsibility, as we know that if we get it right it goes a long way to helping patients’ recovery.

"Along with the improvements we have made to the way our catering operates, we have also made significant cost savings, which has been reinvested back into patient care at the hospital.”