Training for Healthy Food Environments (HFE) in health care systems
Overview
Health care systems globally are facing alarming levels of obesity and chronic disease, poor staff well-being, and urgently need to respond to the climate emergency. Implementing Healthy Food Environments for patients, staff and visitors in health care settings (e.g., hospitals) can help address these challenges, and this training programme is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to do this.
Any professional interested in improving food environments in health care settings can participate in the programme, including clinicians, catering professionals, managers, policymakers, food industry representatives and charity workers. No prior knowledge is required, and the content is relevant to an international audience.
HFE Training Programme Objectives
| HFE Training Programme Learning Objectives |
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| HFE Training Programme Expected Outcomes | By participating in this training programme, you will develop the knowledge and skills to:
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Programme
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topic | 1. Defining a Healthy Food Environment. 2. The impact of diet on health. 3. What is a healthy diet? 4. Health care provider organisations as anchor institutions and public health champions. | 1. The impact of the global food system on the environment, human rights and animal welfare. 2. What is sustainable food & how can health care organisations provide it? 3. What is ethical food & how can health care organisations provide it? | Case study analysis and discussion. | Developing your Healthy Food Environment implementation plan. |
| Format | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Pre-reading and group discussion. | Self-directed work and group discussion – part 1. |
| Delivery | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | Self-directed pre-reading. One-hour group discussion via Zoom. | Implementation workbook available on the Sprink online training platform. One-hour group discussion via Zoom. |
| Objectives (Topic 1) | 1. Read our first research report and analyse the definition of a Healthy Food Environment within a health care setting. | 1. Analyse the impact of the global food system on the environment, human rights and animal welfare. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 2) | 1. Understand how the food and drink we consume contributes to health and disease at individual and population level. | 1. Understand what we mean by sustainability as it relates to food. 2. Identify opportunities for health care organisations to improve the sustainability of the food they provide. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 3) | 1. Understand the components of a healthy diet and why they are important. 2. Understand when people with specific conditions might benefit from different dietary compositions. | 1. Identify how health care organisations can improve the ethical acceptability of their food, in terms of worker and animal welfare. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 4) | 1. Analyse how large health care provider organisations, e.g. hospitals, can positively influence public health. |
| Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topic | 1. Bringing it together: The overlap of healthy, sustainable and ethical food. 2. Approaches to procuring food for a Healthy Food environment. | 1. An introduction to catering for hospital patients. 2. Special diets for certain patient groups. 3. Food safety in health care settings. 4. Different catering models in health care settings. | Case study analysis and discussion. | Developing your Healthy Food Environment implementation plan. |
| Format | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Pre-reading and group discussion. | Self-directed work and group discussion – part 2. |
| Delivery | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | Self-directed pre-reading. One-hour group discussion via Zoom. | Implementation workbook available on the Sprink online training platform. One-hour group discussion via Zoom. |
| Objectives (Topic 1) | 1. Introduce the concept of trade-offs between the occasionally competing priorities of the health, sustainability and ethics of food. | 1. Understand why high-quality food and drink is important for hospital patients. 2. Understand how menus are developed for hospital patients. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 2) | 1. How does food procurement in health care settings work? 2. What opportunities do procurement teams have to support the implementation of Healthy Food Environments? | 1. Describe why patients with certain conditions need specific diets to meet their needs. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 3) | 1. Understand why food safety is an important aspect of a Healthy Food Environment. 2. Introduce relevant guidelines and frameworks. | |||
| Objectives (Topic 4) | 1. Describe the most common catering models used in health care settings, and their advantages and disadvantages. |
| Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topic | 1. The steaks are high: Behavioural approaches to encourage dietary change. 2. Creating compelling business cases for change. | 1. How to measure the success of Healthy Food Environments. 2. The future of food: Innovations which will shape how we eat. 3. Future areas of Healthy Food Environments research. | Self-directed study. | Healthy Food Environments implementation plan presentations. |
| Format | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Pre-recorded videos and pre-reading material. | Self-directed study to prepare the presentation of your Healthy Food Environment implementation plan to peers. | Presentation of your implementation plan to peers. |
| Delivery | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | Videos and pre-reading available on the Sprink online training platform. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 1) | 1. Summarise which behavioural interventions are effective at encouraging healthy & sustainable food choices by consumers. | 1. Describe the evaluation methods that can be used to measure the success of Healthy Food Environments and the advantages and disadvantages of using these. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 2) | 1. Describe the purpose and format of a business case. 2. Understand how to make persuasive arguments to influence decision-makers to accept a business case for a Healthy Food Environment. | 1. Summarise the key trends in innovation within the global food system. 2. Evaluate how these innovations might impact the implementation of Healthy Food Environments in health care settings. | ||
| Objectives (Topic 3) | 1. Define the current gaps in Healthy Food Environments research. 2. Highlight the priority areas for future research in Healthy Food Environments. |
HFE Training Programme Faculty
The HFE Training Programme will be led by a global cross-sector team of experts in different fields.
Gary is a Health Improvement Specialist at Bolton Council. In his role, Gary has worked on several initiatives to improve the health of the health care workforce, including lifestyle interventions to promote smoking cessation, exercise, and locally sourced food. His work on improving the food environment at Royal Bolton Hospital is the subject of a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) case study.
Emma Garnett is a Researcher in the Food Purchasing Team at the University of Oxford. She is investigating the efficacy of different approaches to reduce meat consumption and move to more plant-based diets. More generally, Emma is interested in how we can overcome fairly overcome economic, political and social barriers to live well within planetary boundaries.
Emma read Zoology at the University of Cambridge for her Bachelor’s degree, then spent two years studying in five different countries for an Erasmus Mundus Master in Applied Ecology. She returned to Cambridge for a PhD, researching which interventions were most effective to increase vegetarian sales in university cafeterias. Her PhD research was one of the finalists in a global Solution Search for behavioural approaches to mitigating climate change and has been profiled by national and international news organisations.
After completing her PhD, Emma completed a Fellowship at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership on evaluating the promises and pitfalls of different policies to bring about more sustainable diets, such as carbon labelling.
Thomas Kelley is current CEO of Sprink. Prior to this role, between 2018 and 2019, he was the National Clinical Advisor on Value- Based Health Care (VBHC) for the Welsh Government.
Between 2013 and 2018 he worked at the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM). He established the London office in 2014 and subsequently led ICHOM’s work in the EMEA region between 2014 and 2017. In 2017 he took overall responsibility for ICHOM’s day-to-day operations across its London and Boston offices. He also had global responsibility for ICHOM’s strategic partnerships.
Prior to working at ICHOM he practiced as a physician at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH).
He received his BSc and MD from the University of Manchester, UK and MBA from the University of Oxford, UK.
Inbar Linenberg is a nutrition science manager at ZOE and a nutrition researcher at King’s College London. In this role, she studies personalized nutrition and how it can be translated into practical advice for all individuals to help improve their health.
Inbar holds an undergraduate degree in Biology from Imperial College London and a Master of Science in Nutrition Sciences from King’s College London.
Ed is Associate Director of the Global Centre for Healthy Food Environments at Sprink, where he leads the centre’s day-to-day activities. He also works as an NHS General Practitioner (Primary Care Physician) in west London, and holds an honorary academic appointment at Imperial College London.
He combined his postgraduate medical training with academic posts at Oxford University and Imperial College London. At the latter he was Module Development Co-Lead of ‘Lifestyle Medicine and Prevention’, the UK’s first mandatory lifestyle medicine course for medical students.
Between 2015 and 2016 he was Clinical Fellow to the National Medical Director at NHS England, leading and advising on a range of policy issues. He holds degrees in Medicine and Genetics from the University of Manchester and has a Master of Public Health from Harvard University, where he was a Kennedy Scholar.
Richard is a clinical senior lecturer and experienced public health physician with a special interest in health care and health system management. He leads the Undergraduate Public Health Education (UGPH) unit within Imperial’s School of Public Health. The UGPH team delivers world-leading education, training and research across primary care and population health sciences with a focus on translation and practice.
Richard trained at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine. Completing the academic foundation programme at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry, he moved to Imperial College London as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Public Health Medicine. He has held a wide range of roles across the NHS, local government, national government and private sector including as Senior Policy Advisor to the Department of Health and Social Care.
Elisa Pineda is a Doctor in Epidemiology and Public Health Nutrition. She works at the Centre for Health Economics & Policy Innovation (CHEPI) and at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. Her current research focuses on the food environment and the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Among the projects that she is involved with are the Science & Technology in Childhood obesity Policy (STOP) Project and the NIHR Global Health Research Unit in Cardiovascular Disease & Diabetes among South Asians.
Elisa holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health Nutrition from University College London (UCL), an MSc in Nutritional Science from the Food and Development Research Centre (CIAD) in Mexico and a BSc in Chemical-Biology with a specialty in Food Technology from the University of Sonora in Mexico.
In the past, she has worked with the assessment of the food environment and its association with obesity in middle-income countries and the assessment of dietary patterns and breast cancer risk. She has also collaborated in the construction of the Global Database on the Implementation of Nutrition Action (GINA) from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and obesity projections in Europe in collaboration with the UK Health Forum.
Matt Salt currently works as a Senior Project Manager at Sprink.
Prior to working at Sprink, Matt worked for two National Health Service (NHS) organisations; UCLPartners and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust in project delivery roles. Between these appointments, he worked at the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), developing Core Outcome Sets for multiple conditions.
He received both his BSc and Masters in Public Health from the University of Birmingham, UK.
Phil Shelley was the Chair of the NHS Food Review that was announced by the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, following unfortunate deaths from hospital food containing Listeria in 2019.
Phil is now a Senior Operational & Policy Manager and National Lead for Net Zero Food for NHS England & Improvement covering a range of topics within Soft Facilities Management, including the leadership of the Review recommendations. Having served as National Chair of the Hospital Catering Association, he proactively drives collaboration between fellow organisations such as the British Dietetic Association and the Health Estates and Facilities Management Association to strengthen a holistic approach to catering services for patients, staff and visitors in health care. He has been acknowledged with the Public Sector Catering Award in 2018 and the Outstanding Service Award in 2020 by the Hospital Catering Association.
He is an ambassador for Love British Food and the Guardians of Grub as well as being a board member for Malnutrition Task Force.
Samrat Singh is a researcher at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London, UK. He is the programme lead on agriculture-nutrition projects in the Partnership for Child Development. He is also a consultant with UN World Food Programme and World Bank.
Samrat works on nutrition, food policy and agriculture, primarily in the context of food systems and public health. He focusses on operational research and technical assistance projects. Samrat has undertaken projects in over 20 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with national and local governments and has contributed to the development of national policies and systems.
Belinda Stuart-Moonlight is a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner and one of the foremost food safety and infectious intestinal disease experts in the UK. She possesses excellent academic credentials, including a PhD (King’s College, London) and three Fellowships (CIEH, RSPH and IFST).
Belinda has worked in the field of environmental health and food safety for 30 years and established Moonlight Environmental Ltd in 2001. They are a specialist consultancy service providing businesses and organisations in the food manufacturing, catering and retail industries with legal and scientific expertise.
The bulk of her time is spent working as an expert witness, taking on criminal and civil instructions. These tend to focus on the impact to human health of food, water and the environment.
Registration fees
| Category | Definition | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Supporting Partners and Members | Employees of Supporting Partners and Members of the Global Centre for Healthy Food Environments. | Up to 15 free passes for the virtual education programme. Once free passes are allocated, fees will be charged according to the appropriate category. |
| Regular | Medium and large for-profit companies*. | £499 |
| Concession | Public-sector organisations (including the publicly funded health sector e.g., NHS), university staff and students, non-profit organisations, patient advocacy organisations, and small for-profit companies**. | £299 (Coupon code: concession-hfe-2024) |
| Multiple (Regular) | When purchasing two or more ‘Regular’ places. | £449 per place. |
| Multiple (Concession) | When purchasing two or more ‘Concession’ places. | £249 per place. (Coupon code: concession-hfe-2024) |
*Medium and large for-profit companies: More than 50 employees.
**Small for-profit companies: 1 to 49 employees.
Registration fees – proof of status
- Verification letter from your employer/education institution that includes the dates of employment/enrolment.
- Photo of your work ID/student ID card.
- Proof of attendance at the HCA Forum 2023 (e.g. Screenshot of your booking confirmation).
