President's Message
Dr Trevor Smith, BAPEN President
Having now passed the halfway mark of the year, there is still so much to look forward to in the BAPEN calendar, with plenty of ways for each and every BAPEN member to be able to support us!
UK Malnutrition Awareness Week (MAW)
Hopefully you will have seen the array of awards that the 2018 UK Malnutrition Awareness Week campaign has won, including ‘Best Healthcare Campaign’ at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Excellence Awards, where the campaign was congratulated for its: “creative simplicity and outstanding results.” We also won four different categories at the Communiqué Awards, for excellence in: media relations, survey or market research data, integrated communications, and collaboration and partnerships. The Communiqué judges said that UK Malnutrition Awareness Week had shown: “demonstrable results and delivered tangible benefits for individuals and society.”
We couldn’t be prouder of our first ever UK MAW campaign and I’d like to thank everyone who got involved. We saw some spectacular local awareness raising efforts and had fantastic engagement on social media. I hope that we can spread our malnutrition message even further as we move into the second year of the campaign, and again drive meaningful results in an uptake of self-screening and screening for malnutrition risk in health and social care settings.
How can you help? Stay up-to-date on key UK MAW 2019 developments, updates, new materials and much more by following us on Twitter (@BAPENUK) and Facebook (@UKBAPEN), or visit the UK MAW campaign website and subscribe to receive news and updates. By signing up you will be the first to know when we release new campaign materials and information, leaving you and your team plenty of time to plan for holding a malnutrition awareness event in your setting during UK MAW. You can also help by engaging and sharing on social media using the #MAW2019 hashtag, it’s as simple as going onto the BAPEN Twitter page and retweeting one of our tweets!
BAPEN Annual Conference - Don’t forget to submit your abstracts!
Finally, the BAPEN Annual Conference lands on 26-27th November 2019 – and what better opportunity is there to showcase your research? Remember there is a chance to have your abstract submitted for publication in the online Clinical Nutrition ESPEN journal! Late breaking abstracts will be accepted until midnight on Monday 2nd September 2019, any queries should be sent to bapen@bapen.org.uk.
The conference programme is coming together nicely with a range of stimulating symposia and thought-provoking debates. This year our opening session, ‘Good Morning BAPEN, live from Belfast!’ will take a slightly different format, so don’t miss it. Also, new this year, our Nutrition Village will be set up with practical workstations demonstrating clinical procedures with trouble shooting tips from experts. Make sure to book your flight and travel arrangements soon, there are some good deals still available – find more information here. See you there!
Malnutrition Screening: The past, the present, the future
This year, BAPEN’s ‘Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool’ (‘MUST’) celebrates its 16th birthday. Our standing committee, the Malnutrition Action Group (MAG) is committed to driving uptake of screening with ‘MUST’ across all health and social care settings, and to collecting data on nutrition services across the country. You may have seen MAG’s recently published article in Complete Nutrition on the history of BAPEN’s Nutrition Screening Weeks which collected data in hospitals and care homes between 2007 and 2011.1, 2 It was these Screening Weeks that identified that nearly one in three patients in hospital, and as many care home residents, are at risk of malnutrition. As it has been a long time since we undertook a National Screening Week, we’re holding another one to coincide with UK MAW 2019. This will enable MAG to gather new insights into the prevalence of malnutrition and its management and publish a new and updated report.
How can you help? During UK MAW 2019, MAG will be launching a simple electronic portal to capture data, with the aim of reporting on prevalence of malnutrition, geographical variations and also variations between health and social care settings. We really need your help to make this a success, so in amongst the awareness raising work for UK MAW please do also mark the week of 14-20th October 2019 as a time to provide us with vital information about your local services. Watch the BAPEN website and social media for more details of MAG’s new nutrition portal, it’s a ‘MUST’!
Top 10 priorities for malnutrition in adults
The Malnutrition Priority Setting Partnership (PSP), is a project being delivered by the University of Manchester and managed by the James Lind Alliance. The aim of the project was to find out what uncertainties or questions people with experience of malnutrition have about malnutrition and nutritional screening and what they think research should be looking at next. The survey was aimed at patients, carers, health professionals and anyone else with any kind of malnutrition experience. The results of the survey fed into the development of the top ten priorities for malnutrition in adults, click here to see them. As a partner organisation, BAPEN is particularly interested to see the full findings when they are published later this year.
HAN Week
Congratulations to PINNT for another successful Home Artificial Nutrition (HAN) Week. Those receiving either parenteral or enteral nutrition were the real focus of the week, which was dedicated to raising awareness through the sharing of patients’ personal experiences of HAN. The theme for the 2019 campaign was ‘This is me!’ – in order to celebrate the uniqueness and individuality of each HAN patient. It’s such an important and empowering message, at a time when many people feel pressure to be and look a certain way, not least perhaps because of social media, anecdotal evidence shows this can be a real issue for people who depend on HAN. If you haven’t yet seen it do check out the great campaign video from PINNT.
How can you help? It’s never too late to help PINNT share their messages far and wide. As a BAPEN Core Group, PINNT is incredibly important to us. While we now have a broad remit across malnutrition and nutrition support, our origins as an organisation lie in improving care for patients receiving parenteral and enteral nutrition and it is important to me as President that all within our community get to know the fantastic work that PINNT does to champion patient interests. Please do take the time to visit their website or social media channels and lend them your support.
ONCA Conference, 19-20th November
Despite the undulating policy and political environment, BAPEN continues to monitor for relevant changes, constantly adapting and responding to the challenges that arise. We’ll be using the Optimal Nutritional Care for All (ONCA) conference in Cambridge this November, not only to showcase best nutritional practice, but also as a platform to extend the reach of our call to action for further improvements to a different and wider audience.
References: 1. Russell C, Elia M, on behalf of BAPEN (2014). Nutrition Screening Surveys in Hospital in the UK, 2007-2011: A report based on the amalgamated data from the four nutrition screening week surveys undertaken by BAPEN in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011. Accessed online: www.bapen.org.uk/pdfs/nsw/bapen-nsw-uk.pdf; 2 Russell C, Elia M, on behalf of BAPEN (2015). Nutrition Screening Surveys in Care Homes in the UK, 2007-2011: A report based on the amalgamated data from the four nutrition screening week surveys undertaken by BAPEN in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011. Accessed online: www.bapen.org.uk/pdfs/nsw/care-homes/care-homes-uk.pdfP.S. To keep up-to-date with all BAPEN activity as it happens, please visit: www.bapen.org.uk or follow us via Twitter (@BAPENUK) and Facebook (@UKBAPEN).
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