Top hotel dining at care home

The individuals, who have learning disabilities, autism and complex physical and mental health needs, are supported by family-owned care provider Home From Home Care, which ordered the meals to help reduce the risk of transmission in its homes and ease team members’ workload.

The meals have been a welcome treat for the individuals and staff in their care homes at Ruskington and Dorrington, as well as the others around Lincoln and Grimsby, some of which are currently in lockdown to protect vulnerable individuals. The Lincoln Hotel, situated next to Lincoln Cathedral, has been busy cooking and packaging the meals, which are delivered to each care home ready to be reheated and served by staff each evening.

Director of Home From Home Care, Hugo de Savary, said: “Normally, the individuals we support go out shopping and are involved in preparing their own meals, but the realities of home lockdowns and staff isolation requirements have made this more challenging. To turn a potential negative into a big positive, we’ve decided to treat everyone with a series of delicious meals from the team at The Lincoln Hotel.

“Even during this current wave of the pandemic, the people we care for can enjoy fine dining with nutritious and delicious meals each day. This is a major undertaking which has had a huge impact on easing the workload for our team while also reducing the risk of Covid transmission. “I’d like to say thank you to The Lincoln Hotel. It’s absolutely fantastic to have two organisations in the same community that are able to help each other, especially in two sectors that have been heavily impacted by the pandemic. Around 5,000 meals have already been enjoyed by the individuals we support so far and they absolutely love them.”

Nicola Houltby, deputy general manager at The Lincoln Hotel, said the hotel has been making the meals alongside serving dine-in visitors.

Nicola said: “Home From Home Care couldn’t have their Christmas lunch with us as normal due to the need for care homes to be protected during the pandemic.

“But we then got a call asking whether we would be able to collaborate by providing meals for their homes, and we said yes.

“We’ve been doing it for the last three weeks and we’re now preparing meals until the end of January. We’ve done a monthly schedule so it’s been lasagne, chicken curry, chilli con carne, heartwarming meals provided seven days a week, which are quick and easy to warm through.

“The feedback has been great and it’d be lovely to continue this and help out as much as we can.”

Home From Home Care now aims to hold four celebratory ‘thank you’ meals at the hotel for all 400 staff in the spring.

Alongside Covid safety precautions, the company has developed a unique, in-house staff system, named NewModel of Care, which prevents unsustainable workloads, enables staffing issues to be resolved instantly and helps to identify opportunities for improving staff wellbeing.

The innovation helped the company win the Tech For Good Award in the Lincolnshire Technology & Innovation Awards 2021 last month.