NHS Supply Chain: Food Support Sheffield Children’s Hospital’s New Catering Offer Through Innovative New Culinary Concept
Transforming Hospital Catering: A Collaborative Culinary Journey
NHS Supply Chain: Food has collaborated with various trusts since 2024 to drive positive changes in areas requiring support.
From April 2024 to March 2025, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital culinary plan was executed by the hospital’s Catering Team, with support from the NHS Supply Chain: Food Culinary and Dietetic Team.
This initiative aimed to refresh the children’s menu and overall offerings at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. By partnering with the hospital’s team throughout the year, the menu was imaginatively transformed using NHS Supply Chain: Food’s innovative “More Please!” Culinary Concept, specifically aimed at feeding children on the ward.
Introducing the “More Please!” Culinary Concept
NHS Supply Chain: Food developed Culinary Concepts to enhance food provision for staff, visitors, and patients. These concepts were born out of the Independent Hospital Food Review, recognising that food in NHS hospitals contributes significantly to the health and recovery of patients, as well as the wellbeing of staff and visitors, under the mantra “food is medicine.” In 2024, the team launched the More Please! concept, supported by a recipe book, a fantastic resource for hospital caterers.
This book offers children great-tasting, nutritious recipes aimed at aiding recovery in hospital, and enhances the enjoyment of mealtimes for them. It aims to emphasise the importance of making their food appetising, and is simply giving them more of what they want.
Sheffield Children’s Hospital is one of only three dedicated children’s hospitals in the UK. These hospitals specialise in providing comprehensive medical, surgical, and mental health services specifically for children and adolescents.
Empowering Hospital Catering Teams Through Training and Engagement
Sheffield Children’s Hospital sought to refresh their children’s menu through the “More Please!” Culinary Concept and further develop and engage their catering team. They required new ideas, innovations, and recipes to enhance their menus. Additionally, they sought the team’s support to upskill their Catering Assistants and Chefs, build overall confidence, and foster team development.
The team conducted a two day back-to-back event at the hospital, to upskill the catering colleagues through in-house Skills Academy training. This was followed by an engagement day, where recipes were cooked and served by the hospital’s catering team, with support from NHS Supply Chain: Food, to generate interest in the new offerings.
Two of the catering team also attended one of NHS Supply Chain: Food’s Chefs Academy events held in Sheffield, demonstrating great culinary skills and commitment to their work and progression.
Positive Impact and Feedback from Patients and Staff
Following the two day event the NHS Supply Chain: Food team worked closely with the trust to review and evaluate the employee and patient feedback.
Housekeeping have reported there have been a lot of empty plates coming back from the ward. Some of the parents of the kids even said how nice the food looked. Thank you for your advice, support and help. The team are now feeling more energised and enthusiastic.
Debbie Clark, Catering Manager at Sheffield Hospital
Feedback from the attendees included:
I enjoyed the whole experience. All the tutors were fabulous and made the day so fun.
Both days were great and the team are really engaged, motivated and inspired. The NHS Supply Chain: Food team were friendly, knowledgeable and made all aspects of both days very interesting.
Following on from the event, the hospital embraced the children’s feeding concept recipes and implemented them into their winter menu refresh, incorporating six new recipes. There are further plans to include even more dishes soon, in the summer 2025 menu.
It is an absolute pleasure working with Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The team was incredibly engaged and thrilled to learn more, and incorporate new dishes into their menu. The new menu and dishes have been enthusiastically received by both the patients and employees within the hospital, as well as by the catering team. It’s amazing to see a whole catering team working together to drive change and better the offering for their patients.
Millie Morgan, Culinary Specialist at NHS Supply Chain: Food
Looking Ahead: Expanding Menus and Culinary Innovation
Since the winter menu launch in 2024, Millie and the team met with Debbie, the catering manager, to gather feedback on how working with NHS Supply Chain: Food has benefited the hospital.
Being on the Culinary Plan was great. The Skills Academy for the catering team really engaged them all, and inspired the staff to get excited about new dishes and recipes. They learnt new skills and ideas to put into their work. We then had an engagement day, where new recipes were trialled in our kitchens for the children’s menu, as NHS Supply Chain: Food worked with our catering team to run the new menu. They have built a great relationship with the team here. We had wonderful feedback, from the catering team, housekeepers on the wards and most importantly the children.
We produced our winter menus and used some of the recipes on it, which are still going down really well – the Cowboy pie, Sub roll and some of the dessert recipes are still favourites we use to this day. The “More Please” concept book has splendid recipes, ideas and information in it. We are currently writing our summer menus, and look to the book where we can for inspiration and recipes.
We are using several recipes on the menu from the book, including Meatball Sub, Cowboy Pie, Sticky BBQ Chicken/Quorn, Tuna Pasta Bake, Quorn Fillet Fried Rice, and Raspberry Swirl Sponge. Some of the recipes are utilised within our staff dining room. We are looking forward to the release of the second book “Even More Please!”
Debbie Clark, Catering Manager at Sheffield Hospital
See our Useful Links section to view a sample recipe from “More Please!” and for more information about NHS Supply Chain: Food.
To contact us and register your interest send an email confirming your trust name, location and job title with your full contact details.
Food Team
Links section
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Our Range of Culinary Concept Recipes to Inspire NHS Chefs
We have created six culinary concepts with 150 recipes to help inspire NHS chefs.
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Food
Category information and links relating to our food products and services.