Hospital food services' fate on the agenda

The Hawke's Bay District Health Board is looking to outsource hospital food.

A controversial Government plan to outsource Hawke's Bay District Health Board's (DHB) food services will be the subject of a recommendation at a board meeting this week.

The board is considering contracting out DHB food services to catering giant Compass Group, endangering eight local jobs.

A hospital spokeswoman told Hawke's Bay Today a recommendation would go to the board regarding the proposal at this Wednesday's meeting, which would take into account staff and community feedback on the business case. The scheme, developed by Government agency Health Benefits Limited, has been adopted to varying degrees in hospitals throughout the country.

If all hospitals were to proceed with Compass Group as the single national provider of food services, it is estimated it would save $155 million to $190m over 15 years. Hawke's Bay would save $3.9m over the same period.

The business case said under proposed changes the staff required to deliver food services at the DHB would probably drop by about eight full-time employees, or about 20 per cent of the DHB's food service workers.

The types of roles that were most likely to be affected were cooks, stores and menu collators.

But the document said staff would be re-deployed elsewhere in the DHB or Compass Group where possible.

Food preparation at Hawke's Bay Hospital would also change to a "cook chill" method used by Compass Group, which would involve frozen ingredients arriving at the hospital, to be cooked or re-heated in bulk.

However, it was proposed Compass Group would continue to source the majority of its ingredients from within Hawke's Bay, such as bread products from Goodman Fielder and Quality bakers, and local fruit and vegetables.

In March, the Service and Food Workers Union presented a petition opposing the scheme to a board meeting, with more than 1000 signatures, mostly from DHB staff.

Any changes would probably occur from May next year.