Catering Manager

Whittington Health
Employer Whittington Health NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site Whittington Hospital Town London Salary £54,320 – £60,981 per annum inclusive of HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 07/04/:59

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Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.

Job overview We are looking for an enthusiastic and innovative Catering Manager to join our team at The Whittington Hospital. The successful post holder will be a senior member of the Facilities team and will have responsibility for the leadership and management of both the Patient Catering and Retail Catering teams.

We are looking for a strong leader to be responsible for ensuring our Catering services are effectively resourced and has clear policies to deliver a high quality, safe service with robust governance to give assurance from ‘Ward to Board’ in respect of national standards and statutory compliance.

The successful applicant will be passionate about providing a quality catering experience for our patients, staff, and visitors. Leading from the front, they will act as the Trust’s expert in catering, liaising with and providing specialist and professional expertise to clinicians, dietitians, senior managers, and other staff throughout the Trust.

The post holder will lead on any changes as part of the review process and be responsible for the implementation of innovative solutions that support the Trust’s Objectives. They will inspire the team to deliver quality outputs every time and be accountable for service delivery against Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), service developments and support the departmental Business Plan.

Main duties of the job Accountable for taking our Catering department to the next level, and in doing so, ensuring excellent food and an exemplary customer experience is delivered in a safe compliant, fast-paced, caring environment.

• To lead menu planning and implementation, working closely with Dietitians and clinical services to ensure our food is compliant, appealing and meets the requirements of our patients, visitors, and staff.

Be a senior member of the Estates & Facilities Soft Services team, with accountability for the leadership and management of the Catering services.

To ensure leadership, managerial and professional responsibility for catering services on behalf of the Trust.

To formulate and deliver operational objectives whilst ensuring the provision of a comprehensive and efficient service working on behalf of patients, visitors, and staff.

To review and evaluate the operational effectiveness of the service, lead on improvements ensuring they support the Trust objectives.

• Support the Head of Facilities as part of the Senior Soft Services Management Team.
• Provide excellent customer service to patients, families, and colleagues.

Working for our organisation Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Our ICARE (Innovation, Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Excellence) Values not only help us shape what we do, but also how we do it and why. They are fundamental to the way we do business and care for our patients.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities Quality & Safety

• Responsibility for the overall management of the Catering department at the Whittington Hospital, including compliance with all food safety and hygiene regulations.
• The post holder will be responsible for ensuring the Catering services are effectively resourced and has clear policies to deliver a high quality, safe service with robust governance to give assurance from Ward to Board in respect of national standards and statutory compliance.
• The post holder will act as the Trust expert in catering, providing specialist and professional expertise to clinicians, senior managers, and other staff throughout the Trust.
• Accountable for compliance with the NHS – National Standards for Healthcare Food and Drink 2022.
• To work with Dietetic and SLT colleagues to support regular audit and quality improvement at ward level.
• Departmental lead for investigating all food related incidents ensuring a robust process in line with the Trust’s policies and procedures. Learning to be disseminated to the departmental SLT and where appropriate, the Executive SLT. Learning where appropriate to be disseminated to all parties, including ward staff, AHPs, catering teams.
• Responsible for departmental adherence to all Trust policy and procedures.
• Ensure patient, staff and visitor Dietary and Allergen requirements are met as appropriate. Ensure that all information relating to allergens is available as required and displayed in the retail dining area for the general public, patients, and visitors.
• Liaise with the Dietetics department and wards to ensure the provision of suitable hospital meals for patients requiring highly specialised therapeutic diets.
• Work with Dietetics to plan, adapt, diet code, and evaluate hospital menus to meet the nutritional and dietary requirements of specialised and general patient groups.
• In conjunction with Dietetics, instruct the diet chefs/care staff in the preparation of highly specialised /therapeutic diets for patients.
• Ensuring the safe preparation, cooking, and serving of all foods to patients, staff, and visitors.
• Ensuring the provision of high-quality hospitality Catering for internal events.
• Trust lead for ensuring all staff members are proficient with the correct food safety qualifications for handling food. Develop and deliver in house training for all staff up to Level 2 food Hygiene as a minimum.
• Ensure rigorous service performance monitoring, management and review arrangements are in place and that all remedial actions are identified and undertaken where necessary.

Customer Satisfaction

• To ensure that the views of the patients, families, staff, and retail customers are regularly sought to measure customer satisfaction and inform improvement initiatives. To investigate and respond to all related complaints, putting in place any measures necessary to prevent future complaints.
• Liaise with clinical managers, heads of department, contractors, and partner NHS bodies on appropriate matters to maintain or increase overall activity where this is mutually beneficial.
• Develop effective partnerships and work collaboratively within the Directorate and across the Trust.

Contract Management

• Management of supply chain, taking the expert lead when specifying and tendering new supply contracts.
• To lead the formulation of service specifications in preparation for market testing/re-market testing as appropriate, to reflect the present and future requirements of the Trust.
• Support the Head of Facilities in ensuring we continuously have the very best performing vendors in our retail spaces.
• To take a lead role in the management of each market testing exercise from the formulation of the specification through to the evaluation, award, and contract implementation stage.
• Responsible for reviewing contracts and managing performance of the team and suppliers to the team.
• To ensure there is a robust continuity plan in place to support unexpected changes in the supply chain.
• Budgetary responsibility for catering related pay and non-pay budgets, ensuring the service spend is within prescribed budgetary limits.
• Ensure rigorous service performance monitoring, management and review arrangements are in place and that all remedial actions are identified and undertaken where necessary.
• To actively participate in budget setting.
• To work with contracted services and service users to seek continuous improvement in the quality and standard of the service within allocated resources.
• Identify and implement action plans to generate CIP savings.

Human Resources Management

• Management of the in-house catering team, ensuring operational continuity 365 days per year.
• Accountable to the Head of Facilities for the full range of managerial duties relating to the management of both Patient and Retail Catering. This includes resource management, performance management . click apply for full job details