Catering Department

About our Catering Department

At Mater Private Network, the Catering Department plays a crucial role in the delivery of high quality and nutritious food to our patients. Working as part of the support services, the department provides meals throughout the day to patients, staff, and visitors, with a variety of different tastes, dietary requirements and lifestyles.  

Nutrition plays a vital role in the recovery process for our patients. Our catering team works closely with the dietitians, nurses, and consultants, to ensure that the meals available have a positive effect on our patients’ health and well-being. 

Catering to individual needs

The Catering Department support a wide range of patients, each with unique dietary requirements. Whatever the patient’s requirements are, our team will do their best to accommodate them. We cater for a multitude of diverse dietary restrictions, which along with medical conditions and allergies, also need to account for personal preferences and cultural beliefs.

As part of your treatment, you might experience a loss of appetite. Our team’s goal is to ensure that you meet your nutritional needs. If you feel hungry outside of designated mealtimes, or if there is specific food that might make eating easier for you, please let us know; the team will do their very best to support you.

Our Group Head of Catering's interview

The importance of food and nutrition in a Hospital plays a vital role for patients on their road to recovery.

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For patients

During your stay with us, a dedicated member of the catering team will visit your room to take your food order. Due to the nature of your treatment or other factors, we understand that you might not always feel like having your meal at the usual time. If this is the case, please let a member of staff know, and they will do their best to accommodate you at a preferable time.

The restaurant 

In both our Dublin and Cork hospitals, the restaurants are located on the ground floor. The restaurants are open to all patients, staff and visitors.  

It is available for breakfast, lunch and dinner service, and often hosts theme days where patients and visitors can enjoy meals inspired by diverse cuisines from around the world. 

If you feel able to leave your room and walk around, you are more than welcome to enjoy your meal there. Many patients visit the restaurant to break up their day and leave their room for a while. 

The restaurant serves full meals, snacks, and hot and cold beverages.

Opening hours

• Dublin: 07:45am – 6:30pm
• Cork: 08:00am – 6:00pm

The menu 

The Catering Department is dedicated to preparing meals that strike a balance between providing nutritional value and delighting the palate. Ingredients are sourced from local suppliers to ensure fresh and high-quality produce, and meals are freshly prepared every day. As a result, our menu changes from week to week, subject to availability and seasonality. For patients who visit us frequently, this also means that they have a variety of new meals to choose from.

Breakfast 

For breakfast, we offer a choice of both cold and hot options. As part of the cold option, we offer a continental-style breakfast consisting of pastries, fruit, yoghurt, granola, and smoothies. For the hot option, we offer a full Irish breakfast (sausages, bacon, beans, eggs & pudding), as well as other choices such as scrambled eggs on toast, pancakes and porridge.

Lunch

Our patient lunch menu is designed to meet all patients’ needs and will accommodate specific requirements where possible. Lunch options include a variety of hot meals, salads, soups, sandwiches and wraps, with changes to the menu each day.

Dinner 

The dinner menu is a different offering to the lunch menu and avoids any repetition, so that patients and visitors can enjoy different meals throughout the day. However, if a patient does not have much appetite during lunch and would like a lighter item for dinner instead, our Catering team are more than happy to accommodate this wherever possible.  

Bringing your own food  

We ask that you do not bring any of your own food or beverage into the hospital.  

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Food suppliers

The Catering Department works with the finest local suppliers, all of whom are fully registered food vendors. We complete audits on all our suppliers to ensure the highest levels of food safety. Food traceability is at the forefront of our minds and each supplier must complete a satisfactory tender process in order to work with us.

Patient experience and feedback

The catering team is dedicated to continuous improvement through patient feedback. You may be asked for feedback by a staff member, or you may be provided with a patient survey card during your stay with us. Patient feedback and engagement allow us to continuously improve our service, and better understand the evolving needs and preferences of our patients. 

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