Learning Outcomes:
The written report is designed so that you can meet the following module learning outcomes:
- Appraise differing methods of institutional foodservice
- Determine the financial and institutional constraints of menu planning
- Determine how the nutritional standards and guidelines for catering services are developed, implemented and monitored
- Apply nutritional standards to a given catering scenario
Scenario
You are a self-employed dietitian who has a new workstream which is to make recommendations for an institutional catering service.
A nursing home that currently operates an in-house catering service and would like to move to Simplicity.
Use these as subheadings to structure your report and inform the indicative content:
- Appraise the two different methods of catering systems
- Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each approach by comparing and contrasting. You may wish to consider how you could overcome some barriers you may face in implementing either system.
- Nutritional standards (development and their relevance)
- Discuss the most relevant standards, you will need to prioritize which standards you discuss depending on which setting you have chosen. You should give some consideration to the development of the standards (e.g. why they were put in place originally) and how they impact on catering systems.
- Financial and institutional constraints and impact on nutritional standards
- Consider any non-nutritional factors that will impact on the menu provision
- Monitoring the catering system
- Think about how you will implement the catering system you have chosen and/or audit processes to ensure high-quality nutritional care.
- Recommendations for the organization
- What can you make of everything that you have considered? As the dietitian, what would your recommendations be, based on the information you have obtained? NB. There is not a correct answer, either answer could be reasonable for each case. The answer needs to be a logical progression from what you have discussed in your report.