The Foundation for Medical Services, on behalf of the government and Malta Healthcare Caterers Limited, yesterday signed the contract for the management and provision of the catering services for inpatients to be introduced at Mater Dei Hospital.
The agreement was signed by Paul Camilleri on behalf of the Foundation for Medical Services and Silvio Debono and Mr James Barbara on behalf of (MHCL) Malta Healthcare Caterers Limited, in the presence of Tonio Fenech, Parliamentary Secretary within the Finance Ministry and Head of the Mater Dei Hospital Steering Committee. Mr Fenech said that the signing of the agreement marks the beginning of new levels of quality in hospital inpatient catering services.
Malta Healthcare Caterers Limited was selected through a tender procedure to supply pre-plated cook-chill/freeze meals.
The pre-plated meals will be delivered up to the respective wards. The hospital ward staff will be responsible to deliver the meal trays to each patient and collect the empty trays from each patient.
At ward level, the caterer will be introducing the most advanced meal regenerating system, the B-POD. Mater Dei Hospital will be the fourth hospital world wide besides the ones in Italy, United Kingdom and Canada to introduce this latest method of regenerating meals.
Each personalised tray will be provided with a card, bearing identification of the patient and the ward name, bed number, date, time of food service, type of diet and menu card showing choice of meal.
In order to ensure quality and consistency, all the recipes to be used will be standardised. Consequently all ingredient weights and the final dish weights will be specified.
Malta Healthcare Caterers Limited is responsible to manage and operate the catering service from their new Central Production Unit situated at Fgura. In a few weeks’ time, Malta Healthcare Caterers Limited will start with its staff-training programme overseas. The training programme will cover a number of topics such as food inspection for the testing of quality, appearance, taste and portion size.