Helen Dakin

Former chef uses her studies and experience to make exciting career move

26th July 2010, 12:17pm

Seven years on from her role as the chef of her own 36-seater pub restaurant, Helen Dakin is making the most of her skills in another side of the industry – hospital food production.

Armed with her experience in "meeting customer demand when it comes to supplying and serving quality food", Dakin will be producing food on the scale of 32,000 portions per day as she embarks upon her new role as deputy operations manager for Lifespan Catering Services.

In her current role as deputy catering operations manager, Dakin is part way through her Certificate in Management (CIM) diploma, which she studies for while also juggling a busy work and family life.

Dakin is one of only a handful of staff who has attained sponsorship to work towards the Certificate in Management, with the course ending January 2011.

Lifespan Catering Services, which is the catering arm of the NHS shared services provider Anglian Support Partnership (ASP), first employed Dakin in 2003 as a catering supervisor.

The catering provider prepares and produces "well over 10 million" portions of food to hospital and care home patients in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Leicester, Essex and London are all served by Lifespan Catering Services each year, through the 'cook chill' method.

Since starting her initial role, Dakin has participated in ASP's Leadership Development Programme and worked her way up to her current post where she offers support and training to the team of 50 at the Services' base in Fulbourn, Cambridge.

Dakin said: "At first it was quite daunting, although I have worked as a chef and was familiar with a busy restaurant kitchen environment and the pressures of running my own business, organisational policies, procedures, systems and the whole Human Resources element of the role was something I had to learn.

"I have developed many new skills whilst in this role, I am lucky in that I have a great mentor in my line manager and the Leadership Development Programme taught me a lot about ASP as an organisation as a whole, it opened up great networks within ASP that have come in very useful when it comes to giving good customer service to our customers, and I still have the advantage of my background in catering to offer teams additional support.

"The course I'm undertaking at the moment is opening up many new areas as I learn more about business management."

Related Articles:

• 07 Jul 2010 - Catering supervisor awarded for money-saving idea
• 11 Mar 2010 - NHS catering chefs earn top place in national cookery contest
• 04 Dec 2009 - Lifespan Catering Services expands supply of hospital meals into Essex and Suffolk
• 26 Oct 2009 - Lifespan Catering Service joins national calls to ‘eat seasonably’

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