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Welcome A message from BAPEN’s Chairman...


Contents... Welcome


What’s New


1 2


South Nutrition Day Review 4 BAPEN Conference


5


Focus on Undernutrition 9 Core Group Updates


11


Committee Group Updates 13 Diary Dates


BAPEN Contacts


14 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


A few months ago, I wrote a column entitled ‘Nutrition in a Cold Climate’ outlining why current times are both good and bad for nutritional care. My arguments were that whilst on one hand the ‘profile’ of malnutrition could not have become higher, on the other catering, dietetic departments and nutrition nurse specialists were easy targets for cuts in the context of the enormous financial challenges faced by the NHS. One of the key positive developments that I noted was the implementation of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) outcome 5. This essentially tells all health and social care organisations (well those in England anyway) that they must actively look for malnutrition and nutritional risk, and pursue properly defined pathways to deal with malnourishment whenever possible. Now the CQC have published their first findings on whether hospitals are meeting these nutritional standards. They make for interesting reading.


The most obvious take on the CQC reports so far is that there are major continuing concerns about nutritional care in many hospitals. Certainly, significant numbers have been shown to be failing on what can only be viewed as basic standards of nutritional care, despite the fact that all hospitals are bound by law to comply with the CQC demands. This is obviously disappointing, especially as BAPEN and other organisations have provided all the evidence, tools, guidance and training materials needed to argue for and promote proper nutritional care. Basic failures are therefore unacceptable, with patients being let down by managers and staff. There is, however, another take on the reports so far. A clear majority of hospitals (about 75% of those reported at the time that this column is being written) did not fail on the CQCs nutritional standards. I think this is something to celebrate. Why the optimistic viewpoint? Well, it is my belief that had the CQC never imposed legally binding standards in the first place, any similar inspection of nutritional care would have seen a clear majority of hospitals failing to meet even the most basic of requirements, i.e. that all patients are screened and entered on appropriate care pathways. Prior to the new CQC regulations, BAPEN had spent more than a decade calling for some ‘teeth’ to be added to nutritional care recommendations – a call that had never been really heeded. Although hospitals liked to comply with NICE recommendations if they could, nothing really happened if they failed to comply and a similar attitude was taken towards PEAT standards. I was therefore delighted when the CQC took nutritional issues seriously for without them, I don’t think issues of nutritional care would be anywhere near as well as covered as they are now, and the vulnerability of catering, dietetic and nutrition nurse services would be even greater. The majority of hospitals actually passing the spot CQC inspections has also emphasised that achieving good basic nutritional care is actually feasible in busy modern hospital environments. This is a very important step and so, at a time when the CQC have recently been criticised for failures to detect problems in some care settings, I think their achievement for nutrition should be praised. Finally, the fact that the majority of hospitals actually succeeded in getting basic nutritional care right, serves to emphasise that there really is no excuse for failure. By now, all hospitals should have made nutritional care a priority and should have redesigned their systems to ensure proper standards are applied. Thank you CQC for providing us with those teeth and thanks also for gently baring them.


This issue’s highlights…


Don’t miss this year’s annual BAPEN Conference ‘The Good, the Bad and the Costly in Clinical Nutrition’ – find out more, along with how to register on page 5. Peter Austin reports on the recent BAPEN South Region Nutrition Day ‘Feast and Famine’ on page 4. The Focus on Undernutrition team provide more details on local and national service on page 9. Plus, don’t forget to keep yourself updated with the latest goings-on by viewing our regular sections: What’s New – page 2; Core and Committee Group Updates – starting page 11; and Diary Dates – page 14.


1 BAPEN In Touch No.62 August 2011


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