Committee, Council & SIG Updates

 

The Nutrition Society

Dr Caroline Childs, BAPEN Council Member
Associate Professor, University of Southampton
The Nutrition Society Clinical/Medical Advisory Council member

Email: office@nutritionsociety.org
Website: www.nutritionsociety.org
X: @Nutritionsoc
Instagram: the_nutrition_society
LinkedIn: /nutrition-society

The Society’s Medical Working Group (MWG) remains committed to supporting medical and healthcare professionals in engaging in evidence-based nutrition research and training. To support this mission, the MWG held their first one-day meeting in September on ‘Integrating evidence-based nutrition into Primary Care’ in Belfast. We were delighted to have speakers discussing bariatric care and bone health, as well as hearing from community practitioners, GPs and dietitians. This included a great talk from Peter Turner, Chair of the BAPEN Programme Committee, on recognition and management of refeeding syndrome in the community. With support from the Royal College of General Practitioners Northern Ireland, this informal meeting was a great opportunity for medics, GPs, practitioners, dietitians and nutrition professionals, to come together to discuss the multidisciplinary approach to optimising and integrating nutrition interventions into primary care. All talks will be available via the Academy in due course so please do look out for these.

We are excited to be joining you at the BAPEN Conference to share our Nutrition Society symposium on 'Nutrition and the brain' in Gateshead next month. The session will comprise:

• Nutrition and the brain in early life – Dr Bethany Duffy, Ulster University
• Nutrition, mood and the microbiome – Kieran Tuohy, University of Leeds
• Nutrition and cognition in later life – Anne Marie Minihane, University of East Anglia
• Food insecurity and dementia prevention - Andrea Fairley, Newcastle University.

I hope that this session will be of interest to many of you and I look forward to meeting you in Gateshead!

Some other upcoming events you might like to note in your diary:

• Winter Conference 2025: Dietary guidelines and advice - current and future, 21-22 January, The Royal Society, London.
• International Conference on Obesity, jointly hosted with the Société Française de Nutrition, 30-31 January 2025, Sorbonne University, Paris
• Undernutrition in later life: Current understanding and advances, 1-2 April 2025, University of Dundee, Scotland.

Papers from Nutrition Society events are published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, so watch that space for the research emerging from our conferences that you are not able to attend.

All my very best,

Caroline

 

 

Nasogastric Tube Special Interest Group (NGSIG)

Linda Broomfield, Nutrition Specialist Nurse, Hywel Dda UHB (Co-Chair)
& Suzy Cole, Clinical Practice Manager, Nutricia Limited (Co-Chair)

Email: ngsig@bapen.org.uk
Website: www.bapen.org.uk/groups/bapen-special-interest-groups/ng-sig/

Never events related to misplaced nasogastric tubes (NGTs) continue to occur across the NHS despite multiple alerts and implementation of local systems. Incorrect NGT placement risks administering nutrition or medications into the lungs, leading to serious complications including pneumonia and death.

The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) 2020 report into an NGT related never event highlighted radiographic interpretation as a critical area of weakness.

A collaborative group of professional bodies (British Society of Gastroenterologists, Society of Radiographers, Royal College of Radiologists and Critical Care Society), supported by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (formerly HSIB) and BAPEN, has created a radiographer-led pathway for adoption across the NHS as a system-wide preventative measure to reduce the number of NGT related never events.

Radiographer empowerment and workforce training is a highly effective strategy to reduce NGT related never events: radiographers can highlight misplaced NGTs and initiate actions to rectify this. A national standardised competency-based safe NGT placement pathway and training programme has been created for radiographers.

The project team has developed an e-learning package that aims to develop and evaluate radiographers’ competence and confidence in identifying NGTs that are correctly/incorrectly placed and empower them to take corrective action at the time they acquire the x-ray. This eliminates waiting times for misplaced tubes to be removed and enables feeding or medication administration to commence without further delay.

We are seeking NHS sites to pilot this new pathway through engagement with the e-learning materials and a commitment to changing practice on the ground. You will need to secure approval of the new pathway through local governance arrangements and participate in pre- and post-implementation audits. We’ll provide access to the training materials, template clinical governance documents and standard operating procedures, and the project team will be available for weekly drop-in mentoring advice.

For more information or to request resources that includes information on how to access the e-learning package please contact: guidance@rcr.ac.uk.

 

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