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Patient’s primary medical team
Must play a co-ordinating role between nutritional and other medical and surgical treatments and ensure that their patients receive excellent nutritional screening, assessment and care.
- Acknowledges the importance of the involvement of all doctors/surgeons in nutritional care as, for example, emphasised by the Royal College of Physicians and PMETB.
- Develops, fosters and encourages an awareness of the benefits of appropriate nutritional management and treatment, before during and after hospital admission, whether surgical or medical.
- Considers the patients’ mental and physical ability to eat, the integrity of gastrointestinal function including motility, digestion and absorption, the metabolism and excretory function in the context of a diagnosis.
- Prescribes treatment, taking into consideration drug nutrient interactions, surgical needs etc
- Takes note of and applies nutritional screening, and assesses and monitors nutrition employing clinical, biochemistry/haematology/microbiology information. Includes documentation of nutrition-related issues in records.
- Decides in liaison with NST, nurses, dietitians etc on the optimal approach to each patient’s nutritional needs and ensures informed consent.
- Liaises with patient and patient’s relatives: provides major source of information to patient and relatives in respect of all aspects of treatment, including nutrition.
- Leads on ethical decisions in conjunction with NST and ward nurses, taking into consideration family/carer views including interpretation of advance directives.
- Includes nutritional aspects of care in plans for discharge and out-patient follow up
- Includes nutrition when liaising with primary healthcare professionals.
