How the nutritional standards and guidelines for catering services are developed, implemented and monitored.

Learning outcome 1: Appraise differing methods of institutional food service

Learning outcome 2: Determine the financial and institutional constraints of menu planning

Learning outcome 3: Determine how the nutritional standards and guidelines for catering services are developed, implemented and monitored

Learning outcome 4: Apply nutritional standards to a given catering scenario

Scenario

You are a self-employed dietitian who has a new work stream which is to make recommendations for an institutional catering service.

A nursing home which currently operates an in-house catering service and would like to move to Steamplicity.

Use these as subheadings to structure your report and inform the indicative content:

I. Appraise the two different methods of catering systems
- Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each approach by comparing and contrasting. You may wish to consider how you could overcome some barriers you may face in implementing either system.

II. Nutritional standards (development and their relevance)
- Discuss the most relevant standards, you will need to prioritise which standards you discuss depending on which setting you have chosen. You should give some consideration to the development of the standards (e.g. why they were put in place originally) and how they impact on catering systems.

III. Financial and institutional constraints and impact on nutritional standards
- Consider any non-nutritional factors that will impact on the menu provision

IV. Monitoring the catering system
- Think about how you will implement the catering system you have chosen and/or audit processes to ensure high quality nutritional care.