The switch from standard hospital catering to premium hotel-style room service has not only reduced food waste but also costs for St John of God Health Care.

While a high-end service generally comes at a high price, CEO Bryan Pyne said moving away from traditional hospital food based on set menus and meal times had served up big savings in both production and food costs.

“Hospital food has traditionally had a bad name for being bland, unappealing and served up at rigid times, which leads to lower nutritional intake, wasted food and, most importantly, poor patient experience,” he said.

“It’s an approach which doesn’t match our patient-centred style of care or allow flexibility for patients who may have just given birth, woken up from surgery or had cancer treatment.

“A major bonus of the change is the positive impact it’s had on both costs and food waste.

“This change has also had a significant positive sustainability outcome, reducing food waste by 24 per cent in the 2024 financial year.”

“As an added benefit we anticipate annual cost savings of around $5.4 million on both food and production costs.”

First piloted at our Murdoch hospital in 2020, the room service initiative has been implemented nationally across St John of God Health Care hospitals over the past two years, with St John of God Geraldton Hospital completing the roll out this week.

Hospital patients are free to order whatever they like from the room service menu throughout the day.

While the menu includes luxury options such as salmon and fillet steak, the most popular choices are comfort foods.

Heading the list is Build a Burger, accounting for more than 45,000 orders in the past year, with stir fry, grilled barramundi, lasagna and shepherd’s pie filling out the top five picks.

“The results have been overwhelmingly positive. The room service initiative was launched for many reasons including nutrition, sustainability, patient experience and financial stewardship. It’s been successful on every measure, with the bonus of better patient experience ratings for our hospitals,” Bryan said referring to the organisation’s impressive 80.3 net promoter score which measures patient experience and satisfaction across its 15 hospitals.

“Our caregivers also find it more rewarding because it’s an interactive service which gets a great response and they can engage with patients to help them make nutrition choices that aid recovery.

“All room service orders are taken through our Perth and Bendigo call centres, which handled more than 1.3 million calls last financial year, with an average queue time of just 50 seconds.”

Room service, which includes a bedside service for patients unable to use the call centres, is available at St John of God Health Care Murdoch, Mt Lawley, Subiaco, Geraldton, Berwick, Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong hospitals.