As part of ongoing improvements to our food and drink options at retail sites across our hospitals, last December restauranteurs, caterers, and café operators were invited to tender, to run the main restaurants at St Richard’s and Worthing hospitals.
The tender period is now closed, and we are evaluating offers which are guided by staff health and wellbeing; environmental sustainability; and corporate social responsibility.
The Spice of Life restaurants at St Richard’s and Worthing hospitals will be closed from 6 March 2024.
This is to welcome new suppliers and allow for any capital works to be carried out to prepare the facilities for reopening, which we expect to be early summer 2024.
Acting on staff feedback and as part of the relaunch of these areas, we will be creating staff-only rest areas available 24/7 as well as vending machines to enable staff to buy meals that can be reheated either within the rest area (in microwaves that will be within these areas) or in their workplace.
We hope to have vending facilities available as soon as possible to help minimise the disruption to our staff. In the meantime, existing outlets at St Richard’s and Worthing will remain open for both staff and visitors. These include, Costa Coffee, WHSmith and the Friends, as well as Doctors Orders at St Richard’s.
We hope to keep any disruption to a minimum and thank you for your understanding and patience as we make the much needed and exciting improvements to our catering facilities.