Welcome BAPEN as a fundraising charity?


Contents... Welcome


What’s New


1 2


Fighting Malnutrition 5 Core Groups


7


Committee Groups Diary Dates


BAPEN Conference Event Report


BAPEN Contacts


10 11 12 13 15


BAPEN


dvancing Clinical Nutrition Registered Charity 1023927


BAPEN


Advancing Clinical Nutrition Registered Charity 1023927


British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition


BAPEN is a Registered Charity No: 1023927


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 in clinical 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.


In Touch – The Newsletter of the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition


Cost per issue: £2.00 to non members


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.


DR MIKE STROUD Honorary Chairman


Last month, as with every April for the past few decades, London hosted the greatest charity fundraising event on Earth – the London Marathon. All sorts of good causes benefited but the number of BAPEN runners amongst the 35,000 or so that took part was precisely zero. But why did nobody run for


us? We are after all a charity and have been since our inception more than 18 years ago, but we are not really a fundraising charity and I for one think it is time for this to change.


Do we not after all serve a good cause? Like most health charities, improving patient welfare lies at the very heart of our organisation and the fact that it is a very diverse group of patients who would benefit from even greater efforts to improve their nutritional care, does not mean that we cannot make a great case for donations. I admit that we would probably need to be specific when it comes to explaining exactly what we would do with any donated income but this would not be difficult. We know there is a real need for better information and guidance on nutritional care for patients, carers and health professionals in all social and care settings, and that producing such guidance in both print and electronic formats comes with considerable costs. It should therefore be easy to launch a specific drive to make this better guidance happen.


I must admit that there is a considerable issue around the level of commitment that we should make as an organisation. On the one hand, we could just modify our website to have a ‘Donate to BAPEN’ button and then encourage all our members who undertake sponsored runs or whatever to support our efforts. Whilst on the other, we could be much more ambitious and invest in professional fundraising expertise, no doubt at considerable cost, but with the potential for generating considerably more income. There is also a question of our name. The British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition does not really slip off the tongue, and even for the few amongst the general public who can say it without stumbling, the words will be near meaningless. We are better known of course by the ‘BAPEN’ acronym alone, which is certainly easier to say, but again, it is unclear in terms of meaning even when the official tie- line ‘Advancing Clinical Nutrition’ is added – I don’t think Joe Public knows what this means. But do we change it completely, create an additional new name for our fundraising arm, or alter the tie-line to something that makes all our functions including fund raising clearer? Perhaps we should end up with ’BAPEN – The Malnutrition Charity’? I don’t know the answers to all the questions I have posed above, but I do think they need to be addressed. I will, therefore, be asking them of BAPEN council members and others at this year’s annual ‘Think Tank’ strategy meeting, in the hope that later this year we will see donations starting to come in and that this source of income will build for the future. Meanwhile, if you are doing runs, walks, slims or swims that fit the bill, don’t forget us. Looking to rid healthcare of needless malnutrition is worthwhile and we are the organisation that can achieve this.


This issue’s highlights…


We find out what other associations/groups are doing to fight malnutrition on page 5. The Core and Committee Groups of BAPEN provide an overview of their key activities, starting on page 7. Find out what’s happening at this year’s main event – The BAPEN Annual Conference – on page 12. Sarah Zeraschi, Nutrition Pharmacist, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, reports on the recent Pan-London Regional BAPEN Meeting on page 13. PLUS, register for the BAPEN Research and Audit Database – see page 14.


1 BAPEN In Touch No.61 May 2011


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