Health SA Gesondheid promotes communication, collaboration and teamwork between professions and disciplines within the health sciences to address problems that cross and affect disciplinary boundaries.

Background: The perceptions of mothers and caregivers of children attending early childhood development (ECD) centres play a very critical role in promoting healthy eating habits in children and impact long-term health consequences. Food preferences that are developed during childhood continue into adolescence and adulthood and are difficult to change.Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the perception of mothers and caregivers of children attending ECD centres regarding healthy eating practices.Setting: The study was conducted in ECD centres in Gauteng, North West and Limpopo.Methods: A quantitative descriptive design was used to collect data among 290 respondents using a structured, researcher-administered questionnaire.Results: The findings indicated that the majority (77%) of respondents did not believe that choosing a healthy diet is a matter of knowing foods that are good and bad for health. The majority (59%) of respondents believed that the food they eat and drinks are healthy and see no need to make changes.Conclusion: The study findings showed that the majority of respondents lack awareness about choosing healthy diets. Furthermore, the current dietary patterns of respondents and their children will remain the same as long as the mothers and caregivers feel that the food they eat is healthy.Contribution: The findings of the study contribute to the appropriate measures of educating mothers and caregivers in offering healthy diets to children at home and in early childhood centres.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess patient perceptions regarding South African hospital foodservice quality. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 419 questionnaires were administered to surgical and medical inpatients consuming a normal diet in six South African provinces. A number of 23 urban and 10 rural hospitals were sampled. Inpatients were surveyed for their opinions on hospital foodservice quality with a view to improving meals and food delivery processes. Findings: Results revealed lower patient satisfaction with aspects relating to foodservice reliability. Among other issues, inpatients were not informed about meal times (overall median=0), had to wait longer than expected for their meals and were not informed about delays (overall median=2). Menu items were not explained to inpatients (overall median=0), and inpatients were not informed about nutritional values (overall median=0). Consequently, patients opined that they were not willing to use the hospital foodservice in future (overall median=2). Originality/value: To identify South African healthcare issues that need improvement, it is necessary to establish where to act. These findings create awareness among authorities and hospital managers to consider patient perceptions when they review and try to improve public hospital foodservice quality, which could also assist in ensuring improvement in food consumption levels, thereby combating South African hospital malnutrition.

Purpose: This paper presents an interpretive data analysis from a superordinate study that aimed to determine foodservice satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to determine inpatient hospital foodservice experiences. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used secondary data obtained from 419 respondents: (225 (53.70 per cent) males, 178 (42.48 per cent) females and 16 (3.82 per cent) undisclosed) participants. A comparative, quantitative and cross-sectional approach was applied to provide insight into hospital foodservice experiences. The Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test, interpreted at 0.05 error rate, was used to compare male and female patient experiences. Findings: Male patients had significantly higher rank-sum scores than female patients in almost all items (p<0.0001). The study revealed that hospital personnel, especially foodservice staff, had an unsatisfactory communication approach. Originality/value: This is the first South African study that compares female and male inpatient foodservice perceptions. Hospital managers and stakeholders may need to consider patient’s gender, as a significant factor that is associated with patient experiences, when embarking on improving foodservice systems.

Quality has become a value that enables businesses to survive and continue existing. Henceforth, food industries need to entrench quality into their business performance. Foodservice quality is characterized as a service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs and service free of defects. Foodservice businesses are an integral part of social life, both biologically and socially, biologically as satisfying the nutrition requirements of the society and socially in terms of addressing socialization and esthetics-pleasure values. Therefore, by adopting quality approaches, food industry businesses may encourage customers’ preferences for those businesses that diligently offer these services. Managing food service quality is a complex and challenging task requiring commitment, discipline, and emergent effort from everyone involved in food production processes. The task also requires the necessary management and administration techniques to continuously improve all processes (including quality control from raw material to finished product). Food industries need to be organizationally structured, establish policies and quality programs, measure customer satisfaction, use more quality tools and methodologies, embrace knowledge, apply techniques, and food safety programs to manage food quality. This chapter aims to describe the ISO 22000 system—widely used for quality management in the food industry.

Background: A high-quality meal is essential to patients’ food enjoyment and nutritional value. Patients’ health and nutritional status depend on the quality of meals provided by the hospital food service providers. Equally, patients are largely inactive and could experience energy imbalances if the ‘energy in’ exceeds the ‘energy out’, increasing the chances of the inception of obesity and obesity-related illnesses. Aim: This study assessed the nutrient content of meals served in selected public hospitals in the North West province, South Africa. Setting: The normal diet meals of four district hospitals and one regional hospital in the North West province were collected for this study. Methods: Regular adult meals for breakfast, lunch and supper including all snacks for the day were collected from five hospitals. Each edible food item was weighed and recorded on the weighed food records for later nutrient analysis using the South African-based Food Finder 3 software. Results: Meals in one hospital met Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) (6829KJ) requirements for total energy, while in three hospitals, the requirements were exceeded, and in one hospital, meals were below RDI (5734KJ) requirements. Conclusion: Strict adherence to nutritionally adequate meals for hospitalised patients could positively influence and encourage patients to sustain healthy eating habits after discharge to prevent malnutrition. Contribution: This study provides relevant information that hospital managers can use to improve processes and procedures for dietary planning and ensure that hospital meals are nutritionally adequate.