Catering accounts books fail to tell the whole story
MERCY University Hospital had to be reminded to account for more than half a tonne of cheese that it obtained from the Deprived Persons Scheme, records released to the MoS reveal.
Under the rules of the scheme, the hospital is obliged to return records to show how it has distributed any food aid it has received.
But in July 2012 the Department of Agriculture wrote to the hospital because it had not been sent any record books for 532kg of cheese supplied to the hospital in five instalments during 2011.
In response, catering manager Michael Mulry apologised and sent back the required record books. These, showing how the food had been used in preparing hospital meals, appear to have been accepted by the Department as no further correspondence ensued.
The hospital’s use of the scheme was never audited by department inspectors but there do appear to be inconsistencies in some of the records provided to the MoS.
In certain cases some record books do not appear to account accurately for all cheese provided and at times the amount of unaccounted-for cheese is substantial.
For example, one record book which is supposed to account for 240kg of cheese received in 2010/11 does not explain how any of the cheese was used and does not account at all for 49kg.
The MoS asked the hospital to explain this but did not receive a specific response.
Furthermore certain record books simply give the number of blocks of cheese used in a given day without any indication as to what meals they were used for, while others give detailed descriptions of how it was used.