Welcome
Contents: Welcome
What’s New Mappmal Colour of Government Core Group Updates Committee Group Updates Regional Meeting Report Event Guide BAPEN Contacts A message from BAPEN’s chairman 1 2 5 6 7 8 9 10 15
DR MIKE STROUD HONORARY CHAIRMAN
By the time you read this column, the election will be upon us or perhaps even over and for the last few weeks, you will have had no respite. This column is no exception but unlike the majority of pieces that you will have come across, it is truly non-partisan. Whichever party is now to be in Government, it does not alter the issues surrounding malnutrition in healthcare. Malnourishment continues to be both a cause and consequence of illness and injury and it is, therefore, vital that BAPEN engages with those holding the health portfolios for all three main parties, and that we continue to convey the simple message that malnutrition matters. With more investment in nutritional care, everybody will be a winner.
To be fair, most of the politicians with a specific interest in health within each of the main parties have already recognised this issue but recognition and appropriate action are not necessarily the same thing. A huge amount of effort from nutritional, and other, experts went into the final report on the Nutrition Action Plan (NAP) which was published a couple of months ago. BAPEN amongst others were delighted to see that the Report reiterated the need to continue to improve the awareness and understanding of the impact of malnutrition and that it spelt out the positive impact that nutritional care has on delivering high quality, safe services. However, although the Report emphasised how addressing malnutrition fitted with that Government’s strategies and suggested that ‘robust processes’ were needed to address the problem, the then Government’s response did not really include satisfactory commitments in relation to those ‘robust processes’.
Indeed, while the experts who sat on the NAP advisory boards made it clear that a critical element in the way forward was to ensure central leadership and responsibility on issues of malnutrition and recommended that a permanent Governance Board was set up to ‘provide expert assistance to the Department of Health under Ministerial leadership’, the then Government’s response stated that the leadership needed to maintain momentum should rest ‘at a local level, closer to frontline delivery’.
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British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
A multi-professional association and registered charity established in 1992. Its membership is drawn from doctors, dietitians, nutritionists, nurses, patients, pharmacists, and from the health policy, industry, public health and research sectors.
Principal Functions • Enhance understanding and management of malnutrition.
• Establish a clinical governance framework to underpin the nutrition management of all patients.
• Enhance knowledge and skills inclinical nutrition through education and training.
• Communicate the benefits of clinical and cost- effective optimal nutritional care to all healthcare professionals, policy makers and the public.
• Fund a multi-professional research programme to enhance understanding of malnutrition and its treatment.
The Newsletter of the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.
Printed version: ISSN 1479-3806. On-line version: ISSN 1479-3814.
All contents and correspondence are published at the discretion of the editors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BAPEN. The editors reserve the right to amend or reject all material received. No reproduction of material published within the newsletter is permitted without written permission from the editors. BAPEN accepts no liability arising out of or in connection with the newsletter.
BAPEN is a Registered Charity No: 1023927.
www.bapen.org.uk
This issue’s highlights…
Read about online interactive training for malnutrition using BAPEN’s ‘MUST’, EARNEST, The Nutrition Action Plan and much more in the What’s New section starting page 2. Professor Paula Moynihan from Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing and Health provides information on the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme – mappmal on page 5. The Colour of Government is discussed by Rhonda Smith on page 6. Highlights from the recent Pan-London Regional BAPEN Meeting can be found on page 9. Plus don’t miss In Touch’s comprehensive Event Guide on page 10.
Perhaps this failure to make a more definite commitment was an inevitable product of the looming General Election coupled with the financial uncertainties which then and now are of a scale that would make any party unwilling to state definite commitments. Nevertheless, with the election over and those holding the health remit either finding or going back to their ministerial offices, BAPEN must now seek clarity on how the new Government is going to proceed and, in particular, how they are going to ensure the delivery of effective nutritional care, while holding all health and social providers to account.
Nutrition Toolkit coming soon...
BAPEN's Nutritional Care Commissioning Toolkit will be formerly launched at the forthcoming Capita National Conference - Improving Nutritional Care - on 24th May 2010. Watch out for further information.
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BAPEN In Touch No.57 May 2010
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