Committee, Council & SIG Updates
Malnutrition Action Group (MAG)
Rebecca Stratton, Chair, Malnutrition Action Group
Email: R.J.Stratton@soton.ac.uk
Website: www.bapen.org.uk/about-bapen/committees-and-groups/malnutrition-action-group
As part of UK Malnutrition Awareness Week, the Chairs of BANS (Trevor Smith), MAG (Rebecca Stratton) and the President of BAPEN (Simon Gabe) have published a report ‘Managing malnutrition to improve lives and save money’. You can find the report on the BAPEN website. It summarises the costs of malnutrition and the importance of identifying and appropriately managing malnutrition. Importantly, the report highlights the cost savings that can be achieved by better management of malnutrition.
Thank you to all those organisations who have completed the BAPEN Nutritional Care Tool during UK Malnutrition Awareness Week. Hope you have found the new export function useful to get your own organisation’s results. We are delighted that Dulcie Belvir, a student from Kings College London, will be helping MAG in undertaking a survey about the Nutritional Care Tool to identify what could be improved/changed to encourage you to use the Tool, whether in care homes or hospitals. We would really love your feedback about the Tool, what helps and hinders you using it and also how frequently you think we should be completing it across the country.
We have a great symposium planned for the BAPEN Conference on Wednesday November 21st. In particular, we be hearing from Dr Trevor Smith about new evidence for managing malnutrition in primary care, and welcoming Emily Holzhausen from Carer’s UK to share with us patients’ and carers’ perspectives on what is important for them when thinking about malnutrition, nutritional screening and nutritional care.
Reminders… we have the ‘MUST’ online calculator on the BAPEN website. You can use this online calculator to screen patients, and as all the calculations are automated it makes it easier and there is less chance of errors! It is suitable for use on a mobile device too. There is a PDF function so you can download a PDF copy of the results and print/save to a patients’ records. We also have the self-screening version of the tool for patients and carers to use themselves.
The Nutrition Society
Dr Bernadette Moore, University of Leeds, The Nutrition Society Clinical/Medical Advisory Council member
Email: office@nutritionsociety.org
Website: www.nutritionsociety.org
Twitter: @Nutritionsoc
Instagram: the_nutrition_society
I am very much looking forward to the upcoming BAPEN Conference in Harrogate on 20th-21st November, where the Nutrition Society is honoured this year to co-host with BAPEN a joint symposium on 20th November entitled ‘Gastrophysics and the ‘Shape’ of Food – A way forward to tackle malnutrition’.
Also, I am honoured that I have been invited to speak at the BSPHGAN sponsored symposium entitled ‘Sugar’ on 21st November alongside fellow speakers, Dr Susan Hill (Great Ormond Street Hospital), Professor Angus Walls (University of Edinburgh) and Sally Moore (University of Leeds). I am looking forward to sharing the latest evidence and my own perspective as to ‘How to reduce sugar – do taxes work?’ In addition, the Nutrition Society will also be attending the conference, so there will be an opportunity to meet their members of staff and discuss the Society further.
I would like to alert BAPEN members to the upcoming annual Nutrition Society Winter Conference. This clinically focused conference on 4th-5th December, in partnership with the Royal Society of Medicine, will focus on the theme of diet and lifestyle strategies to manage cardio-metabolic risk. The conference aims to explore how diet and lifestyle factors contribute to the development of cardio-metabolic risk (CMR), and how modification of these factors can be used in practice as strategies to manage CMR and reduce cardio-vascular disease (CVD) risk. To find out more and view the two-day programme, click here. Early bird registration rate expires on 12th November. To register for a place, click here. I will be attending the Winter Conference in December, and hope some of you can as well. As ever, I welcome any opportunity to discuss how our Societies can further synergise efforts to meet our membership’s needs.
The Society’s relaunched training programme within the Nutrition Society Training Academy (NSTA) has been updated to provide a range of webinars, which will provide insight and an understanding of the scientific evidence on topics such as Omega 3 fatty acids, Nutritional genomics, Carbohydrate quality and health and Nutrition and the ageing immune system. I encourage BAPEN members to view the range of webinars on offer and to book a place to gain insight and join discussions around these topics.
Finally, I also would like to make you aware that in less than one year, the Nutrition Society will host the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) 13th European Nutrition Conference in Dublin, Ireland. This FENS European Nutrition conference is held once every four years and is the premier European conference in its field. The conference will attract a wide variety of delegates from across Europe and further afield to attend a range of sessions and to network with international colleagues. The call for abstract submission form is now open and BAPEN members are welcome to submit their work for the opportunity to present and be published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (PNS). Further information about the conference can be viewed on the FENS website along with submission details.