Target: Wellbeing Founded Project Receives National Award for Improving Nursery Food

Bupa Foundation awarded HM Partnerships, a public health social enterprise whose profits go back to parent charity Heart of Mersey, the Bupa Foundation Award Healthy Lives Prize for their work in understanding and improving the nutritional quality of food provided in nurseries accross the city of Liverpool. They received the award at a prestigious dinner held in London on 10th November.

Following on from Target: Wellbeing's Pre-School Nutrition project, which saw heart of Mersey develop, pilot and evaluate a nutrition training course and programme of support for early years caterers and staff in Knowsley, Liverpool PCT commissioned HM Partnerships to create this award winning programme which surveyed all 130 nurseries in the city and investigated the nutritional value of food offered to children, as well as the level of understanding about child nutrition amongst staff.

As reflected in nursery surveys in other parts of the country, all menus were high in salt and deficient in energy, iron and zinc which are essential for childrens' development.

To remedy the situation, the programme supported by Liverpool PCT, Liverpool John Moores Universtiy, Liverpool University, Liverpool City Council, Sportslinx and Heart of Mersey set out to educate Liverpool's nurseries about the importance of healthy diets by creating a bespoke accredited training course. Nurseries were also provided with a number of resources including a nutritionally balanced three week menu plan, complete with healthy and tasty recipes and a detailed healthy eating policy for the nurseries to adopt.

Over 70 nurseries have taken part in the training to date, making positive changes to their menus for example reducing; the use of ingredients high in salt, sugary drinks and dried fruit, and increasing the provision of oily fish, fresh fruit and vegetables.

This research has been published in the Journal of Public Health Nutrition and has formed a part of the evidence base for the School Food Trust report 'Laying the Table- Recommendations for National Food and Nutrition Guidance for Early Years Settings in England'. The Liverpool Nursery Nutrition Programme also complements the early years nutrition research completed by heart health charity Heart of Mersey.

Mike Parker, Managing Director of HM Partnerships said of the programme: "Young children in nursery care often consume all their daily meals and snacks within the nursery setting, yet unlike schools there is no formal national regulation about nutritional quality of the food provided. The research clearly identified many significant nutritional deficiencies in the food served in Liverpool nurseries - research that we then used to develop a specific early years nutrition course for nursery cooks and managers - leading to significant improvements in food provision to thousands of under 5s across our city. This work should be replicated nationally to provide every child with the healthiest possible start."

Bupa's group medical director and deputy chairman of the Bupa Foundation, Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen, said: "The Bupa Foundation is delighted to recognise this important programme to improve the nutrition of children in Liverpool. With almost a quarter of children there starting school overweight or obese, it is more important than ever to instil good health habits as early as possible."

HM Partnerships are looking to develop this work in other Local Authority areas across the country, if you would like to know more about this project or to discuss how HM Partnerships could support you in this area please contact us: julie.macklin@hmpartnerships.co.uk