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Malnutrition must be addressed in the community
as well as in hospital and care
BAPEN Report confirms up to one in three of all adults of all ages at risk of malnutrition
on admission to hospital, care homes & mental health units
• 28% overall at risk of malnutrition (22% overall at high in order to ensure that
risk; 6% medium risk) malnutrition is effectively
ncreased risk on transfer between care settings with addressed.”
• 43% at risk on transfer from care home to hospital and Professor Elia concludes:
• 35% at risk on transfer from hospital to care home “Participating hospitals,
care homes and mental
Data fed back to local reporting centres for bench- health units have now re-
marking against national results to improve policy and ceived their results so they
practice can benchmark their own
local prevalence figures
BAPEN’s Nutrition Screening Week Report 2007 and screening practice
(NSW07) released in April provides detailed analysis against the national pic-
on 11,000+ subjects in the largest prospective study on ture. Such comparison will
nutritional screening ever undertaken in the UK using support the drive for further implementation of universal
consistent criteria across all settings based on BAPEN’s nutritional screening and best practice in nutritional care
Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, the ‘MUST’. and treatment spearheaded by BAPEN as part of the
370 reporting centres throughout the UK (172 hospi- national Nutrition Action Plan.” BAPEN’s second
tals, 173 care homes, 22 mental health units) screened Nutrition Screening Week takes place 1-3 July 2008 and
11,000+ individuals on admission (9,722 in hospital, 1,610 further results will be presented at BAPEN’s 2008 Conference
residents in care and 336 admitted to mental health ‘Malnutrition Matters’ (5/6 Nov, Harrogate). Further informa-
units) tion at www.bapen.org.uk.
“Twenty-eight percent of all subjects screened on
admission to hospital and care during BAPEN’s Nutrition
Screening Survey were shown to be at risk – the vast
majority (22 percent) at high risk,” says BAPEN Chair and
co-project lead of NSW07 Professor Marinos Elia.
“BAPEN’s NSW07 has clearly demonstrated that mal-
nutrition is a significant public health issue which must be
addressed in the community – where it starts. Consistent
and integrated strategies to detect, prevent and treat
malnutrition must be developed to effectively address
malnutrition in the community and within and between
all care settings to ensure that the health outcomes for
all being admitted to hospital, care and mental health
units are not compromised. Our data show that particu-
lar attention should be paid to those being transferred
from one care setting to another.
“It is essential that everyone admitted to hospital and
care is screened for malnutrition, so that all at risk are
identified and an appropriate nutritional care plan put in
place. Those at risk must be monitored regularly. The Re-
port also demonstrates that currently nutritional screen-
ing policies and practice vary between and within
health care settings, which means that malnutrition
continues to be under-recognised and under-treated.”
Data from BAPEN’s NSW07 demonstrate that malnutri-
tion is common in all types of care homes, hospitals, all
types of wards and diagnostic categories and in mental
health units. It is also common across all age groups,
although risk increases with age, and women are at
greater risk than men.
Christine Russell, co-project lead for BAPEN’s NSW07
said; “Health care professionals – doctors, nurses and
dietitians – must work to implement consistent nutri-
tional screening policies and practice across all settings
NHDmag.com May ‘08 - issue 34 9
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