"All care home staff should be aware of this training" - How our pureed food workshop has helped others and why you should come along next time.

Did you make it to our recent Live Workshop to help improve the presentation of pureed meals?

 If not, here’s a short review of what you missed and why we’d love to see you at the next one.

 Preston Walker, a very well known and respected care industry chef, was our trainer for the day. Preston also runs his own care home and is passionate about sharing his knowledge and skills around the subject of Dysphagia and meal presentation for people on soft and pureed diets.

Over the course of the day, Preston, with some help from HCSUK MD Jo Bonser, covered a range of topics and areas relating to pureed food. An overview of the condition of Dysphagia, followed by one on the thickening powders that are available led into the practical session where Preston showed how to make pureed food more attractive with the food moulds available. The workshop then moved onto looking at thickened drinks and discussing the challenges facing care caterers regarding producing attractive and appetising meals for people with Dysphagia.

Preston and Jo

Throughout the day, the national standards and terminology were addressed including National Descriptors stage 1/2/3 and National Diet Descriptors B/C/D/E to ensure that all staff know the standards required and how to test products to ensure safety.

The day concluded with more practical demonstrations and a Q&A session.

Preston taking the study group through one of the sessions.

We already know that our delegates took great value from our course and left feeling ‘inspired’, ‘able to offer greater menu choices for their residents with swallowing difficulties’ and also ‘equipped to make more appetizing and attractive meals’ Here is some of the feedback they gave us -

“From start to finish the course was great, I now want to put this into practice at work”

“The whole day was fabulous, thank you”

“All Care Home Staff should be aware of this training”

The first workshop we conducted 3 years ago resulted in one of the attendees being awarded Dysphagia Chef of the Year and we can’t wait to see what the results are from this workshop and what impact will ripple out into the wider care community.

Stay tuned for news of the next workshop/study day!

The practical demonstration