Hospital food complaints (FOI)

Request

How many complaints have there been about the new patient food service at the general hospital in the last 12 months, and what are the nature of these complaints?

Specifically relating to patients not being fed, insufficient food available and lack of dietary considerations.

Response

In the last twelve months, the Health and Social Services Department has received two complaints about the food in writing. 

One was regarding a patient with severe allergies, and the other was a general complaint about patient care which included comments regarding the length of time the food service took to complete and of the choice of food.

Jersey General Hospital is audited by the independently validated ‘Picker Institute of Europe’ in regards to services delivered within our hospital. 

Specifically, in relation to patient food questions, patient satisfaction or complaints regarding the quality of the food served, the Jersey General Hospital was scored by its patients to have significantly higher levels of satisfaction than those of UK national hospital trusts.

In a recent Picker survey, our hospital patients scored Jersey General Hospital:

• 32.5% as 'Very Good' quality of food compared to the UK of 20.2%

• 34.9% as 'Good' compared to the UK of 34.4%

• 22.8% as 'Fair' compared to the UK of 27.8%

• 5.5% as 'Poor' compared to the UK of 12.4%

• 80.5% of patients had a choice of meals compared to the UK of 77.1%

• 83.6% of patients received exactly what they ordered compared to the UK of 74.9%