Catering Manager

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., · 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., + 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.

Financial Management

• 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, investigation and disciplinary issues relating to the directly employed workforce.

• To manage and co-ordinate disciplinary, grievance, capability, and sickness absence procedures in line with Trust Policies.

• To communicate service change to staffing groups where there may be some resistance. Negotiating, influential and reasoning skills are required to deliver change to improve/modernise the department.

• Provide professional and technical leadership within the Catering department and assist with career development for staff and review performance of internal service provision.

• To be responsible for the recruitment and selection of all Catering staff, including preparation of advertisements, review of job descriptions and person specifications and staff selection.

• Managing the senior Catering team who along with our chefs and catering assistants, create nutritious meals for our patients, staff, and visitors.

• To develop the catering structure to ensure a team of professional staff deliver the highest quality of service within the resources available.

• Responsible for all Catering staff, making sure sufficient training is provided to the appropriate levels and standards for all staff that serve food to patients, staff members and visitors.

• To undertake annual performance reviews with all Catering Supervisors, ensuring objectives are set and Personal Development Plans are in place and to encourage staff with their own personal development.

• Responsible for ensuring all direct reports are directed to undertake annual performance reviews with all Catering staff, ensuring objectives are set and Personal Development Plans are in place and to encourage staff with their own personal development.

• To liaise with staff groups and their representatives as necessary.

• To ensure that services are developed in line with requirements and that they continue.

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS

To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:

• Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.

• Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.

• Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.

• Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.

• Participate in required training and supervision.

• Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct

Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Your application form –

1. Provide only business email address for your referees – we are unable to request references from yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail accounts.

2. Make sure you to include all evidence of where you meet the essential requirement on the jobs description as this forms the base of our shortlisting criteria.

Our processes –

1. Closing dates are given as a guide; we are within our right to close adverts early so please ensure you submit your application as soon as possible to avoid delay.

2. If you do not hear from us up to 3 weeks after the closing date of the job unfortunately this means you have not been successfully shortlisted for interview. If your require feedback on your application please contact the appointing manager detailed in the body of the advert.

3. Please check your emails regularly as all correspondence from us will be via trac.systems – occasionally these emails will go into your Junk folder.

4. Employment at Whittington Health is offered subject to successful completion of a 6 month probationary period for all staff with the exception of GMC Registered Doctors.

Other important information –

• Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the UKVI points based system.

• Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.

• In submitting an application form, you authorise Whittington Health NHS Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process should you be appointed to the post.

If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a "selfie" using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

Please note that during the recruitment process your Identity Documentation (i.e. passport, driving licence, visa, etc.) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, Infrared and Machine Readable Zone security features of the documents provided

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

We would welcome applications from individuals who are from underrepresented groups in the organisation

For our current apprenticeship vacancies, please go to https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship and use Keyword ‘Whittington’, For more information, please access the following link: https://www.whittington.nhs.uk