A comparison of the mealtime care given to patients by nurses using two different meal delivery systems

This study explored the mealtime care given to stroke patients and general patients on the medical wards of two hospitals which operated different meal delivery systems. Overall, nurses in Hospital 1 (in which the patients' food was plated by catering staff in the main hospital kitchen) tended to be less involved in mealtimes than those in Hospital 2 (in which the nurses plated the food on the wards). This was particularly so for the qualified staff and applied to many aspects of mealtime care including meal trolley supervision, the serving and delivery of food, checking patients' well-being, observing their feeding difficulties, providing assistance during mealtimes, and observing the contents of discarded dishes. These differences were not related to staffing levels or the prevalence of feeding problems. It is possible, therefore, that a meal delivery system designed to free nurses from the 'non-nursing' duty of serving food may have an adverse effect on their involvement in other aspects of mealtimes.