When it comes to reducing waste, improving our carbon footprint and cutting costs, our Patient Meals team at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has the recipe for success.

The new initiative was introduced in May and by the end of November we had seen 35,046 fewer meals being wasted – equating to cost savings of almost £15,000.

Patient Meals Assistant Manager, Jo Tock, said: “At our HRI and Castle Hill sites our patient meals are cooked on the wards and, historically, have always been packaged in portions of two or eight meals.

“This means that if five patients on a ward order one specific dish and seven order a different dish, we would have sent six of the first meal and eight of the second, due to the pack sizes – which often leads to waste.

“I have been looking to reduce this wastage and improve our sustainability and found that our suppliers were starting to offer some meals in single portion packs – and we’ve now using these as much as possible.”

And while this may sound a simple process, it’s taken a lot of work behind the scenes to adapt.

Jo added: “I couldn’t have done this without the support of the staff, who have really got behind the changes. They have been amazing.

“There were lots of things we needed to consider. We had to look at our storage, because it was another product we had to store. The team in the Production Unit had to pick and pack things differently and we’re talking 2,000 meals for both hospitals, so it’s no small thing.

“There are also the Ward Caterers at Ward Level who are cooking the meals and looking at the way the teams were ordering meals.  We have been doing a lot of work to let them know that they don’t need to order extra meals ‘just in case’ of a patient being admitted later in the day.

“The way the system works is that additional meals can be ordered up to 90 minutes before they are delivered to the wards and there will always be at least one spare meal built into what each area receives. We can also provide sandwiches for patients who are admitted later.”

And this isn’t the only change that has been made.

We have also launched a new initiative that enables us to recycle the plastic trays that the meals come in.

Jo said: “Once the meals have been done, at ward level, the trays are collected up, washed and brought back to us, where they are bundled up and returned to the supplier to be melted down and reused.”

So far, we have washed and recycled almost 24,000 trays – generating a carbon saving that’s equivalent to powering 238 beverage rounds across Hull Royal and Castle Hill!

It’s also reducing the amount of waste our onsite Waste teams have to deal with, helping them to operate more efficiently too.