My motto? “What they want, how they want, when they want”
Our care is about more than medicine. It’s about comfort and moments of joy. While doctors and nurses tend to clinical needs, our Catering colleagues, work tirelessly behind the scenes to help every patient feel at home with personalised meals hand-cooked with skill and care. Here, Gemma, a trained chef and our Kitchen Lead offers a glimpse into life inside our hospice kitchen.
From the moment the catering team arrive at 7.30am they start preparing for a busy day. The team begin their morning routine by checking fridge temperatures, receiving deliveries and preparing the kitchen for the day ahead. By 8.30am, breakfast is ready and on its way to patients. But this isn’t just any breakfast service. While there’s a standard menu, patients can request whatever they fancy.
“Our motto is people get what they want, when they want, how they want,” says Gemma.
Wherever they can, the catering team make breakfast special for those on our wards, often decorating breakfast trays to mark different occasions.
After breakfast, the team move straight into preparing lunch. Alongside patient meals, they also prepare “grab and go” sandwiches for the Woodgate Hub café customers and staff lunches. This can sometimes take as long as three hours depending on the number of orders.
Lunch is usually served to patients around 12.30pm and the menu is thoughtfully planned around a four-week rota, offering a meat option, a vegetarian dish, a fish dish, two types of potatoes, vegetables and pudding, always homemade.
“It might be a pavlova one day, a lemon tart the next,” says Gemma. “Everything is made from scratch. On hot days after lunch we’ll take round a trolley with ice cream and ice lollies too.”
What makes the catering team’s work extra special is their willingness to go above and beyond daily and to mark any milestone that matters to a family.
“Sometimes we’re told it’s someone’s birthday without any advance warning but we always find the time to make a cake and to decorate a trolley with banners and fizz to deliver the cake on to someone’s room. We adapt to whatever people need and want,” shares Gemma.
“We’ve celebrated birthdays, weddings and anniversaries at the hospice. We’ve hosted afternoon teas and last November we prepared a three course Christmas dinner for a patient who requested it, and decorated a table in the Wellbeing Centre, so she could enjoy one final Christmas dinner with her family. One of my standout memories during my time at the hospice has been baking a vibrant, layered rainbow cake for a rainbow end of life celebration.”
“At Easter, we had eight families come forward for a three-course Easter meal to enjoy together in their rooms,” recalls Gemma. The team also set up a colourful sweet table in reception for any visitors and handed out Easter eggs donated by kind supporters in the community.
“More recently, there’s been a gentleman who’s requested cheese, biscuits and pickle every evening, to enjoy with a glass of port he brought from home. That evening ritual matters to him so it matters to us.”
People can request food anytime between 7.30am and 7pm when the kitchen staff are on shift. “Some patients prefer a main hot lunch meal for supper in the evening and we have daily options – sandwiches, quiches, omelettes, scotch eggs, salad, soups or something on toast. Sandwiches and omelettes are most popular.
One patient loves to have pate on toast so she has that most meal times, another loves macaroni cheese” says Gemma. “Someone else asked for a steak dinner with chips, and some patients have asked for a sandwich to be put in their room fridge for a midnight snack. We cater for individual wishes, likes, dislikes and dietary requirements.”
Volunteers play a huge role within the team too helping with tea and coffee rounds, collecting water jugs and supporting with washing up.
“We have three volunteers covering shifts throughout the day and they’re crucial to what we’re able to do. If we don’t have a volunteer to support us, that dramatically affects our day,” explains Gemma. “Their help frees us up to focus on cooking.”
Between 5pm and 6pm a volunteer takes round the daily drinks trolley, which many patients and relatives enjoy. “One patient recently requested mojitos to drink with her daughter,” smiles Gemma. “We get lots of requests for milkshakes and fruit smoothies too.”
When asked if she and her catering team colleagues ever reflect on the difference they make to people at the hospice she says, “We just do it, we don’t really think about it. It’s an everyday thing.
For us, it’s never just about feeding people though. It’s about bringing people enjoyment through their food, even at the end of life.”
