Health ministry sets meal-management standards for long-term care homes

South Korea's health ministry said Tuesday it has drawn up standards for food service at long-term care institutions, requiring homes to show residents and their families how their meal-ingredient fees are spent.

The guidelines also tighten nutrition and hygiene oversight and set detailed rules for contracted catering, responding to persistent complaints that meals at some facilities were poorly managed. The standards were drawn up after the government folded "strengthening the meal service delivery system" into the third long-term care basic plan and gathered research and field feedback.

Under the new rules, institutions must disclose how meal-ingredient fees are used, and money received for ingredients should in principle be spent within three months.

Hygiene and nutrition duties are split by facility size. Homes with 50 or more residents must have their mandatory dietitian complete a hygiene management checklist, while smaller homes are to register with the social welfare food-service management support center in their city, county or district to receive professional nutrition and hygiene support.

Institutions may only subcontract to qualified companies that actually employ dietitians and cooks, and they are told to use their own kitchens where possible, set an appropriate contract unit price and go through a reporting procedure to prevent poor meals in advance.

"These standards are significant in that they present concrete criteria for guaranteeing the quality of meals at long-term care institutions," said Choi Bong-geun, the ministry's senior policy official for elderly affairs. The ministry will support the standards so they are used well in the field and work to ensure older adults can eat safe, healthy meals, he added.

The ministry said it will distribute the standards to local governments, the National Health Insurance Service and related associations, and will review improvement requests from the field for inclusion in the government's guidance on elderly health and welfare programs.