When residents want you to save thier food.....

[litbitblack, ASN, RN]

I work in a long term care setting and for meals we have been told in the past we can only hold the meal for 2 hrs from the time the tray is set up and then we have to send it back. I have dementia residents who routinely want us to hold the meal then come out when it is to late to give it to them. Does any one else have time limits on how long you can hold the food? Other staff on other halls have been known to not follow it so I am just wondering how strict I need to be because this resident already accuses me of things i don't want her accusing me of anything else. By the way I am in texas.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

What is the dietary department manager saying? Where would you store it?

[amoLucia]

Am reading this late.

Might there be some Food Service Regulation from DOH or local/state health depts (like the kind that supervise over commercial restaurants, diners, etc) that stipulate the length of time that food is still considered to be safe. Like AFTER 2 hours the food may start to be 'growing' something like salmonella. When you think about food content, there could be all kinds of dairy and meats that could be prone to spoiling. So there could be some regulation.

If you've ever seen the regs that govern food kitchens like labelling, lids, etc, you'd see they are almost more OVER-regulated than nsg. And that's hard to believe!