What made you apply to the position of co-chair of BAPEN’s Faculty?
The work BAPEN does is vitally important in terms of supporting our healthcare professionals who work in the field of clinical nutrition, ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to the provision of patient centred nutritional care and raising the profile of clinical nutrition and screening for malnutrition. I was keen to continue to support this work and to work again alongside the many amazing colleagues within BAPEN. Working as an executive at Board level in an organisation and being involved in the National Improvement Board has also given me different insights into how the NHS functions than I had when working clinically as a dietitian. Being able to bring these insights to the work that BAPEN undertakes affords an exciting opportunity to further advance the work of the organisation.
Can you tell us a bit about your experience with BAPEN to date?
Earlier in my career I was involved in BAPEN, including being a member of the Conference Programmes Committee and a member and then chair of the Quality and Safety Committee. I also held the position of Secretary. These roles within BAPEN were a great opportunity to get involved and work as part of a multidisciplinary team to meet the charitable aims and improve patient care. I was fortunate to get involved in a wide range of work including co-writing the BAPEN commissioning toolkit, securing a Health Foundation Grant for BAPEN to co-design a nutritional care measurement tool utilising measures for improvement, representing BAPEN at a number of conferences including presenting the work the charity was undertaking and incorporating a focus on improving nutritional care into the national harm free care programme, alongside Professor Mike Stroud.
What would you say to anyone who may be interested in getting more actively involved with BAPEN – whether that be on a committee or through best making use of their membership?
I would urge all our members to consider getting involved in BAPEN – you will meet amazing like-minded colleagues who are all committed to advancing nutritional care and sharing best practice. You will have some great opportunities to contribute to the work or to lead programmes of work. If you are interested in getting involved, do please get in touch and speak to colleagues who are already involved. Although there is a need to commit your time and expertise and you will be asked to contribute to the work of the charity, it’s also great fun. I’ve stayed in touch with a number of colleagues I worked with at BAPEN over the years and it’s great to be working with some of them again now that I have joined BAPEN Faculty.
I’d also like to ask those currently holding roles within BAPEN and those who have undertaken roles previously to encourage as many of our members as possible to get involved. I have had a number of roles within BAPEN over many years but for all of them (including this Faculty position) I was either invited to join a committee or invited to submit a nomination for specific roles, (including the Secretary post) and I suspect this may be the case for many other colleagues who have undertaken BAPEN roles over the years. I am really grateful to those colleagues who invited me to get involved; it would be great if we could do the same for our next generation of BAPEN leaders, in an inclusive way so we create equity for all BAPEN members.
What do you hope to achieve in your new BAPEN role?
I’ve learned a lot over the last decade about how the NHS system and Trust Boards work, having undertaken a role within NHS Improvement and joining a Trust Executive team and Board. I hope to bring some of the learnings from these experiences to BAPEN as the role of Faculty is to advise Council and the Executive Committee and bring to their attention any concerns regarding future strategy. I am also the Improvement Director for NHS IMPACT and a member of the National Improvement Board and the National Frailty Board. I hope to be able to advise BAPEN about some of the upcoming exciting opportunities for advancing nutritional care for patients by adopting an improvement approach, as the NHS in England has set an ambition to become the fastest improving healthcare system in the world.
In what ways do you see BAPEN evolving as an organisation in the near future? What opportunities lie ahead?
I think how BAPEN evolves will be determined by our members. Given our commitment in our strategy to ‘listen, lead, share and support’, it’s really important that we hear from our members about what matters the most to them. I’m personally really keen to support BAPEN to maximise its impact and achieve its ambition to ensure that every individual receives safe, timely and appropriate nutritional care in every care setting, every day. We all have a role to play in ensuring that we do all that we can in our organisations and systems to achieve this.
The NHS is currently experiencing immense challenges, but with those immense challenges there are also significant opportunities. These opportunities to evolve are exciting as we work towards becoming the fastest improving healthcare system. In his recent review of the NHS, Lord Darzi highlighted the key shifts needed across our NHS: from hospital to home, from analogue to digital and from treatment to prevention. Now is the time to prioritise good nutritional care as we embark on an ambitious improvement programme for the NHS.
