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meals

Posted By Glasgow cfer

"meals"

About: Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow

(as the patient),

I suffer from cystic fibrosis the cf centre for West of Scotland moved from gartnavel general to the new south Glasgow university campus, I was admitted in June due to chest infection.

Our dietician at gartnavel worked very hard to get the cf patients a cf menu due to our high calorie nutritional needs.

My stay in the new hospital was awful I've never been so hungry! I had such little portions of food. Recently I had a hypo as I also suffer from diabetes to be told the ward isn't allowed to keep food I went from 7.30am to 9am with no food! I had to keep my sugar levels up with Lucosade I had in my room not an ideal situation!

The lack of food and choice was very poor and all the cf patients were suffering over the weekend. I said to a member of the kitchen staff about a cf menu and how it had been set up in our previous hospital to be told very bluntly that wouldn't be happening here! To make the situation worse one evening the whole ward didn't get any dinner as the kitchen staff locked themselves out apparently at 6pm they arrived with cold sandwiches for everyone which I'm afraid is not good enough for an evening meal! Myself and a few others had to order food from an outside venue! Cf centres across the country have very good meal set ups to manage our nutritional needs, this is a new multi billion pound hospital and is 1 of the worst cf centres at the moment i feel, which is a shame as the west of Scotland cf sufferers had high hopes of our new modern centre it's very disappointing, we cannot afford to lose weight but that is what happened to me in the few days I stayed in. To not have food available on the ward when their are diabetic people is asking for a disaster!

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Responses

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 8 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 30/06/2015 at 14:19
Published on Care Opinion at 22:57

Dear Glasgow cfer,

I'm really disappointed that this was your experience of the food service recently on the ward you were being treated in - this is of course not the standard that we would expect and I am sorry that we have fallen short for you on this occasion.

I've already sent your comments to the General Manager for Facilities for this hospital, particularly for more information about the specific incident you refer to when you didn't receive a hot evening meal. I know that unexpected situations can always arise, but we have in place ways to manage such situations so that patients don't go without a meal. It's therefore important that we look in more detail at times where this didn't work.

You have also talked about supplies of food being available on wards and specific menus which are appropriate to the needs of each patient, both of which are important elements of our wider catering strategy, so I'll come back to you with more information about that specifically. It would also be helpful if you could let me know the dates and ward that you stayed in - it may be that there are specific needs we have to address on a particular ward and if that is the case, this information will really help.

Thanks again for taking the time to give us your feedback and I will be back in touch as soon as possible.

Kind Regards,

Lorna

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Update posted by Glasgow cfer (the patient)

Thank you lorna for your reply, I would be more than happy to give you the information you have asked for, do you have an email address to contact yourself on?

Response from Lorna Fairlie, Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 8 years ago
Lorna Fairlie
Patient Experience, Public Involvement Project Manager,
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

I work in a small team in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which seeks to involve patients and carers in the work of the NHS. The biggest part of my role is in managing feedback projects across the Board area, one of which is Patient Opinion. It is my job to give our patients and carers the opportunity to give us feedback, and to make sure that this is passed to the right people to help us improve the services we provide.

Submitted on 18/11/2015 at 12:15
Published on Care Opinion on 20/11/2015 at 10:37

Dear Glasgow cfer,

It has been a few months since you highlighted this issue and I appreciate you getting in touch directly so we could chat about this in more depth. I was just going back through some older stories and wanted to give an update on what has happened since you posted so that anyone else reading this will be able to see the changes that have been made.

We spoke about the fact that there are stocked pantries on each ward which have basic foods that can be offered to patients between meals, for example bread with various spreads, cereals, biscuits, hot drinks etc. This is available to all patients, but we had also spoken about the specific CF menu provided at Gartnavel and the difference this makes on a day to day basis.

Following your post, I know that the CF dietician came to see you all on the ward to let you know about the new menu arrangements being put in place in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, as well as to promote the fact that extra snacks were available on the ward.

One of the main things through all of this however is staff awareness - I know that many staff were unaware of things like the stocked pantry which they could use. Helen who is the Catering Strategy Dietician has been carrying out training with duty managers and supervisors, focusing on the availability of special items and menus so hopefully this message is understood now.

I know that the last time we spoke, you had seen a real improvement in the food you received, and I hope and expect that this has continued. Please get back to me however if you see any changes.

Thanks again for raising this with us and helping to make a difference,

With best wishes,

Lorna

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