Food on demand delivery service: from hospitality to hospital - trialling a proof of concept in a specialist children's hospital.

OBJECTIVES: Hospital food influences experiences and outcomes of care, and optimising nutrition for hospitalised children is universally recognised as important for recovery. While several barriers to oral food intake have been identified, interventions to address them are limited. Our aim was to implement and evaluate a proof-of-concept (PoC) trial of a Food on Demand Delivery Service app in a specialist paediatric hospital. DESIGN: PoC trial and evaluation. SETTING: Specialist children's hospital. PARTICIPANTS: 101 families completed baseline measures; 26 families completed measures during the PoC trial, 18 parents and 11 ward-based staff participated in interviews, and four ward-based staff and four catering staff took part in focus groups. INTERVENTION: Following adaptations to an existing web-based Food on Demand Delivery Service app, a PoC trial was undertaken on six inpatient wards during a 4-week period. Data were collected before and following implementation, using quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups and individual interviews) approaches. RESULTS: The Food on Demand Delivery Service was positively evaluated by all stakeholder groups. Challenges were identified, particularly by catering staff in relation to communication and logistics, but overall findings supported upscaling to a hospital-wide roll-out. CONCLUSION: The Food on Demand Delivery Service offers potential for addressing barriers to oral intake for hospitalised children. Challenges will need to be addressed prior to scaling up the project for a hospital-wide roll-out, and several recommendations came from the trial. However, the benefits for children, families and staff were evident and supported further work to enable the Food on Demand Delivery Service to be introduced across the hospital.