720744Kafoodle KareClosedGRD Development of PrototypeInnovate UKIn light of the Staffordshire Trust Hospital scandal, the Government implemented new strategies for providing “maximum care” for patients. Earlier this year, the Health Secretary introduced 'mandatory food standards' enforced through legally binding NHS contracts with hefty fines for hospitals that “don't provide good enough food”. Since 1992, £54m has been spent on 21 initiatives to try to raise food standards. However 3m patients remain at risk of malnutrition whilst in hospital and at least 20% of hospitals and nursing homes are not meeting at least one basic or essential standard in nutrition and hydration. The problem for hospitals and residential homes is that as many as 50 different diets need to be provided for, whilst typically serving ~2.8m meals a day. Therapeutic, nutritional, medicinal, recovery and post surgery, cultural, religious, allergies, intolerances - all these special diets need to be catered for with many patients requiring adherence to multiple dietary needs. It is no wonder that 30m patient meals are wasted each year at a cost of £230m at a time when the NHS needs to make £22bn savings. Care plans are supposed to monitor nutrition and dietary intakes; however even electronic care plans rely on visual cross checking to spot allergic and medical reactions. Food intolerances are rarely catered for, meals lack nutrition and taste, and there is no quality standard benchmarked across healthcare providers. Our solution is Kafoodle Kare a cloud based e-nutritional care plan that maps permitted ingredients in meal plans to medical condition and all possible dietary needs, hence providing a food resource management system that can be integrated into existing patient management systems. Kitchen staff would be able plan and resource cost effective, nutritional, appropriate wholesome foods that meet patients’ dietary needs. Kafoodle Kare would enable the NHS to reduce costs and wastage, raise food standards and meet mandatory requirements.