Food Is Health Care, Medicine Is Sick Care: Abbey Healthcare's Jo Ankers on Meningitis at 16, 45 Years in Kitchens, and What Dignity in Dining Actually Looks Like
Joa Ankers didn't plan to become a chef. At 16 she was a county-standard athlete, until meningitis put her in intensive care for a month, took her hearing in one ear, and redirected everything. Six months after leaving hospital she was at catering college. Forty-five years later she is Group Catering Manager at Abbey Healthcare, overseeing 16 teams from Glasgow to Dover, holding a five-star environmental health rating across the group, and retaining 99% of her chefs. Her philosophy, stated plainly: food is health care. Medicine is sick care.
Joa Ankers moved into healthcare catering thirty-five years ago because of circumstances within her family. The first kitchen she walked into was, by her own description, slop on a plate — and she found it disrespectful to people who were someone's mother, someone's father, someone's sibling. That sense of obligation has shaped everything since.
At Abbey Healthcare, nine years in, she looks after 16 teams spanning Glasgow to Dover: overseeing menus, environmental health policies, training, and the daily problem-solving that doesn't show on a plate but makes everything on it possible. Every home holds five stars from environmental health. Chef retention sits at 99%. Even those who say they're retiring come back within two days.
The career that led here began with meningitis. At 16, Jo woke at midnight unable to hold a cup of tea, with a burning headache and eyes that couldn't stand the light. She was in intensive care for a month, 44 miles from home. It took her hearing in one ear. Her eyesight came back; her hearing didn't. Six months later she was at catering college. She became student of the year, went on work experience at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chester, was offered a job on the spot, and eventually appeared in the Good Food Guide. She arrived in care not defeated but redirected — and walked in with enough to change.
The Dignity in Dining Manual is hers, written in her own time, used to train carers as well as chefs. The reasoning is straightforward: the moment food leaves the kitchen and goes to a carer, that person takes on responsibility for it — and they need to understand environmental policies, nutrition legislation, and care quality regulations. Monthly meet-the-chef sessions give residents a direct voice. Tabletop feedback cards scored one to five cover food, temperature, and service. In-depth dignity dining surveys run when new menus launch. Menus go out six weeks in advance so chefs can adapt them to region and residents. Scotland runs heavier on saturated fat and resists brown bread; Central London needs multicultural menus shaped by decades of residents' lived experience. Every region is different. Some residents arrive malnourished or morbidly obese from years of eating alone — guiding them toward better nourishment is part of the job, and seeing it work is among the most rewarding parts of it.
On recruitment, Jo is direct: you cook for her at interview. She has no interest in fabricated CVs. If she had a penny for every chef who claimed to have worked for Gordon Ramsay, she says, she'd be a millionaire. What she looks for is passion and how someone talks about food. With 69% of global chefs reportedly trying to leave the trade due to burnout, she sees a clear opening: better hours, family evenings, weekends, and long-term relationships with the same residents you cook for every day — something no restaurant kitchen can offer.
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