President's Message
Dr Trevor Smith, BAPEN President
This year seems to be flying by, but I hope everybody is looking forward to the summer months ahead. I am pleased to share a round-up of various activities over the past few months, as well as highlight a couple of upcoming plans that I hope many of you will get involved in.
Home Artificial Nutrition (HAN) Awareness Week
I was delighted to support HAN Week once again this year, run by our fantastic Core Group PINNT. HAN Week seeks to raise awareness about essential nutritional treatments, spanning parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition and oral supplements. The focus is around these life-saving treatments received by people living in the community, and people were encouraged to share their stories and experiences as part of the #ThisIsMe, #ThisIsUs call to action. This year was also particularly special as PINNT celebrates its 35th birthday and I extend my congratulations for the running of a successful and inspiring campaign.
'MUST'
You may have seen that researchers at the University of Manchester called for participation in discussion groups around the potential for the development of a mobile app for ‘MUST’. Currently, ‘MUST’ is only available as an online tool or paper-based, but this exciting project is looking at the development of a mobile app. The discussion group will examine content, functionality and usability and the opportunity to share feedback. Do keep your eyes peeled for further updates on this.
In June, ‘MUST’ was introduced as part of the initial first day physical health screen at Her Majesty’s Prison Berwyn, Wales. Fran Allsop, a Registered Dietitian at the prison recently spoke to BAPEN about this initiative, which she hopes will help ensure that patients receive equitable, timely care from the multi-disciplinary team to prevent risk of further weight loss and health decline and identify need for further intervention and investigations. The full article written by Fran, as well as a contribution from Dr Rebecca Stratton, Chair of the Malnutrition Action Group (MAG), is available to read here.
In other ‘MUST’ news, an article in the British Journal of Nutrition (BJN) about the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool has been recognised as ‘seminal’ in a recent review. Acknowledged as one of the most highly cited papers from this journal over the years, the 2004 paper was cited to have contributed and resulted from systematic efforts to improve detection and treatment of malnutrition in the UK. Find out more about the recent review, as well as the original 2004 article here.
UK Malnutrition Awareness Week 2022
UKMAW2022 is just around the corner – so please do mark 10-16th October in your calendars. We are delighted to be working with the Malnutrition Task Force (MTF) for the fifth year running, to raise awareness of malnutrition and dehydration in all settings, highlighting the importance of everyone working together to increase identification and management.
As in previous years, the Malnutrition Action Group (MAG) will be running their national screening survey for all health and social care professionals to take the temperature on malnutrition rates and nutritional care received. The aim is to gather data from a range of health and social care settings across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I urge as many of you as possible to contribute to the screening survey, as the more data we collect, the stronger the picture we can pull together and use as a comparison to previous years to track change and patterns. Keep your eyes peeled for the portal opening in October!
Awareness weeks like this are so important for joining forces and spreading important messages to wider audiences. Please do keep your eyes peeled for further information about this, as well as ways that you can get involved!
BAPEN’s 30th Birthday
To mark our 30th birthday milestone, we are asking for people to share memories of BAPEN over the past three decades for featuring in future issues of In Touch and/or on social media. This is a great opportunity to commemorate lots of stories about BAPEN and I’m really looking forward to reading them! If you would like to share a memory please email: bapen@mandfhealth.com with a description, or if you have any questions at all.
BAPEN Annual Conference
I’m also very excited that Conference 2022 is not too far away! Please do join us 29 & 30 November 2022 at the Hilton Brighton Metropole for the opportunity to meet together as a multidisciplinary organisation. I know the Conference Committee are working hard on the programme – click here. I am looking forward to sharing best practice, hearing updates from colleagues in various settings across the UK, and also celebrating BAPEN’s 30th birthday.
Early bird registration for Conference has now opened here. If you haven’t attended BAPEN Conference before, I’d urge you to join us this year! Thank you to all those who submitted abstracts, and I look forward to seeing many of you in Brighton.
As always, keep an eye out on our social media – Twitter @BAPENUK and Facebook @UKBAPEN – and website for information on upcoming events, publications, statements and training and education meetings.
Best wishes
Trevor
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