Following months of collaborative effort, Sophie’s Legacy and NHS England have announced the launch of a pilot project on 26 July 2024. This initiative aims to address the critical issue of providing meals to parents staying in hospitals with their children.
Following an initial pilot at nine hospitals in 2023, 15 more hospitals, including Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, have now joined a programme funded by Sophie’s Legacy, to provide food for parents.
Access to food and drink is not just a comfort but a fundamental necessity for parents navigating the stress of having a child in the hospital. By ensuring parents’ basic needs are met and stress levels are reduced, parents can actively participate in their child’s care and engage more effectively with medical professionals, leading to better decision-making about treatment options and plans. Ultimately, this empowerment translates into better outcomes for the child and enhances parents’ sense of control during a challenging time.
In 2023, Sophie’s Legacy initiated an eight to twelve-week pilot program funded through the Children’s Hospital Alliance. The program, implemented in hospitals including Great Ormond Street, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and Southampton, highlighted the necessity of providing meals for parents and demonstrated the positive impact on the entire family, ultimately enhancing the hospital experience. Following the pilot program, several hospitals opted to continue feeding parents and even initiated additional initiatives to promote this practice.
In Manchester, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and Sodexo, who provide services for the NHS, have introduced a food voucher per day for use in Hospital restaurants where they can access a wide range of hot and cold food options. If this isn’t suitable for the patient’s families, a selection of breakfast and lunch items are available in the ward pantry for parents and guardians to access so they stay with their child at mealtimes.
This project will work alongside Emmie’s Kitchen, a local Manchester charity, who provide hot meals and snack bags for parents and carers at RMCH every Friday evening. Over the past six years, they have served 30,000 meals and raised £300,000 to help fund their work. Thanks to the work of both charities, families at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital have even more access to high quality food options to support them at a challenging time.
Sophie’s Legacy’s goal is to scale this initiative nationwide, ensuring no parent must go without proper nutrition while supporting their child in hospital. Over the past six months, Sophie’s Legacy has worked alongside NHS England to expand the project throughout England.
In March 2024, NHS England invited expressions of interest from hospitals across England, including in Devon, Bolton, London, and Liverpool. Of twenty-six applications, fifteen hospitals were chosen to receive £5,000 each from the £75,000 funding provided by Sophie’s Legacy. The project will run for up to twelve weeks, during which each hospital will offer at least two meals per day, to the parent/carer. Hospitals involved are free to consider the most appropriate method of implementation for them, which could include choosing meals from the hospital menu, offering ready-made meals, or providing vouchers for the hospital restaurant. They are required to demonstrate how they will continue to feed parents beyond the pilot project, and evaluation of the impact of the projects will potentially enable them to provide an evidence-based argument for future funding.
Charlotte Fairall, CEO of Sophie’s Legacy, expressed her satisfaction with the project’s launch, stating, ‘I am pleased we have managed to get this project launched. The impact this will have on thousands of families across the 15 hospitals will be huge. No parent should have to go hungry when they are in hospitals with their child, and we are doing all we can to change this.’
NHS England deputy chief nurse Duncan Burton said: “We’re delighted to have worked with Sophie’s Legacy to support these trusts to provide food for parents. We know it can be an incredibly stressful time for parents and children and this is one way which can improve the experience of parents who are staying with their child in hospital. We are keen to take the learning from the trusts who have joined this programme and share this with others across the country.”
Kimbereley Salmon-Jamieson, Group Chief Nurse at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I’m pleased that even more families across the country will now benefit from this vital initiative from NHS England and Sophie’s Legacy.
“Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is one of the busiest in the country, and many families are with us during extremely difficult times in their lives.
“Having access to food without the worry of cost or availability is a small thing that can be done to help families and we’re pleased that parents and guardians will be supported by this scheme, allowing them to focus on caring for their children.”