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Nutrition is Everyones’ business – NEPHELP Kicks off in Brighton

Within the hospital setting, a third of people are undernourished on admission and often become malnourished during their hospital stay. This increases the risk of morbidity and mortality and on average increases length of stay by 3 days compared to those that are adequately nourished.

Enhanced nutrition education has been perceived as paramount in the identification and treatment of malnutrition. Research by the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health has established a large gap in nutrition understanding of medical practitioners but promisingly, a desire for more nutrition within medical education and greater clarity of a doctor’s role in nutrition care.

“Nutrition is Everyone’s Business”

As a result, NNEdPro have compiled a workshop aimed to educate Junior Doctors and health professionals promoting nutrition as “Everyone’s Business”.

The innovative programme comprises of education regarding the history, science and future of nutrition, the relevance in healthcare, screening, assessment and management, as well as a focus on specific aspects of nutrition such as gastrointestinal health, refeeding and micronutrient function, in conjunction with overall application to a variety of clinical case examples.

Feed for health – the Nutrition Education Policy for Healthcare Practice Training Package (NEPHELP) aims to facilitate the provision of nutrition education, focusing on the hospital setting.

The workshop aims to equip participants to:

  1. Describe the common problems of nutritional care in hospitals and public health;

  2. Have an orientation to the use of appropriate screening tools to detect clinical malnutrition;

  3. Begin to discuss basic nutrition interventions, before appropriate onward referral to specialists where necessary;

  4. Understand the broader pathways of referral for nutrition services between primary and secondary care.

Wednesday 1st May saw NEPHELP premier its’ first roadshow in Brighton.

Close to 30 Foundation Doctors attended the session and found it interesting and useful. One of the requests was to produce more workshops in the future with the focus on the case studies and discussions around nutrition topics in the hospital settings.

One of the local dietitians presented her work on improving outcomes through food and beverage services with hiring a new catering contract that effected the hospital residence positively with their food experience.

Next up: 4 cities across England

After a successful launch we are excited to continue the roadshow in 4 more cities in England throughout the summer! Next is London.

#Nutrition #NEPHELP #FoodinMedicine #nutrition4all #nutritioneducation

Elaine Macaninch

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