Chef's dementia nutrition work earns national award

A Derbyshire care home chef has said it felt "unreal" to be recognised for his work at the Dementia Care Awards.

Richard Glover, head chef at Ashbourne Lodge, received the Creative Nutrition Award in July for his work developing personalised nutrition plans for residents.

Glover has also helped introduce snack stations and hydration areas to allow residents to maintain their weight and give them more independence.

Glover, 42, said: "If a resident came out of hospital or they came from their home slightly malnourished, to be able to build them up to be healthier, to be able to be with their loved one that little bit longer, is the reason that I do it. That's my passion behind it. "

Glover has worked in catering his entire working life, starting out as a pot washer at 15.

He has since held roles in restaurants, cafes and hotels in the Ashbourne area, as well as holiday work on the Isles of Scilly, spells in managing food businesses and as a freelance chef.

He moved into care settings just over a decade ago, and said the diners can sometimes be more demanding than in a restaurant, despite the work that Glover and his team put into making mealtimes as regular as they can for residents who may need their food blended or minced.

He said: "We play around with it so it looks as similar to a normal dish as possible. If it still looks bright and vibrant and still looks like a carrot, your senses will automatically tell you that that's a carrot.

"They will still give you compliments, and a lot of times they can be your worst nightmare, because they're really critical.

"They can be very much, 'I wouldn't have cooked that like that when I was at home'.

"You have to think of different ways to be able to improve how you do it."

The chef, also group catering manager for Milford Care, said his success at the awards came from his approach to "tailor-making residents' dietary needs" and "how you can actually get more proteins, more vitamins, more minerals" into their diet.

Glover said the idea for food and drink stations came as having set meal times "wasn't really working".

The chef said it could be "quite challenging" to keep some residents fed and hydrated who "can be on the move all the time" burning more calories than they take in.

But the stations, which he said were introduced in 2025, helped "prevent residents losing weight".

Glover said "jelly-drop" type items which they made in-house helped with this, while in one case they had successfully trialled a fortified ice cream product which included vitamin D, leucine, and whey protein.

Glover said: "It's not just about the food, it's also about the encouragement and also treating that person with independence.

"Some of my residents actually come in and help me cook, they will come in because they're so used to doing it and it's a skill that they've acquired over the years, so why not let them still do it?

"We work in their home, it's never that they live in our workplace.

"Some of those people don't get to see their family members as much as they should do so you become their second family."

Pierre Falleth, managing director of Milford Care, which runs the home, said: "This recognition is a testament both to his expertise and to the high standards we are committed to maintaining throughout all of our homes."

Glover said it had taken him a week before the award "actually sunk in".

Listen to BBC Radio Derby on Sounds and follow BBC Derby on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.