President's Message
Dr Nick Thompson, BAPEN President
Reflecting on 2024, BAPEN delivered some fantastic work throughout the year. In association with others, we advocated for improvements in nutritional care standards and practice with policymakers – such as meeting with Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, along with leaders from the British Dietetic Association and PINNT to raise the importance of nutrition teams in healthcare and highlight the need for additional resources, especially for children with intestinal failure. Working with the Malnutrition Task Force, UK Malnutrition Awareness Week raises the issue of malnutrition amongst the general public and other healthcare professionals. Looking ahead to 2025, I’m keen for the momentum from last year to continue to build. It would be great for even more members to get involved with BAPEN activities and contribute their voices and perspectives to the work that we do to improve care for patients.
2024: A busy year for BAPEN
2024 was my first full year as President of BAPEN and I’m proud of the work we’ve achieved. As a charity, we’ve continued to work towards our three strategic goals of Knowledge, Reach and Sustainability – and as our membership continues to grow so too does our ability to advocate for positive change. For the first time we have funded grants for both individuals and Core Groups and Committees to deliver more research and innovation in clinical nutrition. There will be another call for grant applications this Spring, so keep an eye on the website for details.
The past twelve months provided us with the opportunity to engage with new politicians and policymakers across the UK to highlight the risks of malnutrition and the importance of timely and multidisciplinary nutrition support. We submitted evidence to Darzi’s independent review into NHS performance in September and to the 10-year Health Plan for England at the end of the year, and it was encouraging to see home artificial nutrition discussed in the House of Commons in October. Throughout the year, the Covid Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA) – led by BAPEN’s indefatigable Barry Jones – has participated in the independent UK Covid-19 Inquiry, providing evidence of the experiences of healthcare professionals through the pandemic and the risks they faced of infection exposure.
PENG, one of BAPEN’s Core Groups, celebrated its 40th anniversary with a special event held in Liverpool, bringing together their network of dietitians that deliver excellence in nutrition care in all aspects of nutrition. Towards the end of the year, we held a very successful Conference in Gateshead with >700 delegates, where we welcomed BAPEN members from across the country to join us for two days of learning, networking and sharing best practice. 2024 certainly was a busy and productive year!
Carolyn Wheatley in the King’s New Year’s Honours
On behalf of all members of BAPEN I would like to give the warmest congratulations to Carolyn on being awarded an MBE. This is very, very well deserved. Carolyn has been a passionate and dedicated advocate for patients needing artificial nutrition – she has been a great source of sensible, firm and measured advice to BAPEN Council, Executive and Presidents for many years and we are in her debt.
BMJ Open Gastroenterology – call for papers
Alongside Dr Trevor Smith and Dr Ally Speight of the British Society of Gastroenterology, I am delighted to be a Guest Editor at BMJ Open Gastroenterology; we’d like to encourage you to submit papers on advancing nutritional support and best practices in nutritional care. We’re accepting submissions in a range of formats, whether research studies, quality improvement reports, reviews or clinical guidelines. This is a great opportunity to showcase your work – if you submitted an abstract for BAPEN Conference, consider submitting a publication by the end of March! You can read more about submissions via this link.
BAPEN’s Edgbaston Course
We’re really pleased to launch the 3-day Edgbaston Course (new for 2025!) to be held on 19th-21st May, a fantastic opportunity for multidisciplinary nutrition teams from across the UK to come together to learn together and develop as a team. The course is fully funded – you just need to get yourselves there and obtain funds for overnight accommodation – do talk to your manager about going! We’re keen to have representation from teams across the UK in this interactive, engaging learning experience. More info here.
BAPEN Conference 2025
It's also never too early to mention BAPEN Conference. This year, we’re in Wales and we encourage all those interested to begin thinking about abstract submissions. Conference is always a brilliant opportunity to network and share practice across the clinical nutrition space and we hope 2025 will be our biggest to date. Please do mark the dates 11–12th November in your calendars.
In case you missed us in Gateshead last year, or would just like a recap, all presentations have been uploaded to the BAPEN website, accessible to BAPEN members.
Once again, a huge thank you for your support of BAPEN and the work that you do to help patients across the UK over the past year and I look forward to working with you all this year! Although I have only just completed my first year as President, my term in office stops in November 2026 which means that we need to appoint a President-elect for November this year. We will have an advert in the summer – do think about applying!!
Best wishes,
Nick
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