President's Message
Dr Trevor Smith, BAPEN President
Welcome to my last column of 2019!
It’s strange to think that I’ve been President of BAPEN for almost a whole year. The year has flown by and I’m really proud of what we’ve managed to achieve.
Of course, one of the standout events for me this year has been UK Malnutrition Awareness Week. Did you get involved? Thank you if you were one of the many people who made it such a huge success!
I hope you might be interested in learning how we did!
UK Malnutrition Awareness Week (MAW)
Local events
I was absolutely staggered to see the number of local events helping to mark the week. From what we can see on social media, over 250 events were held around the country, each with its own unique twist! This is really something. Last year, during our inaugural year, there were 50 great pioneers out there, who have obviously inspired more people to get involved this year. This is wonderful, so many people will have seen you and heard your message. This is direct awareness raising in action, wonderful stuff!
I’m actually hopeful too that there was even more activity behind the scenes. Our materials that we hosted on the UK MAW webpage were downloaded more than six and a half thousand times!
Awareness through the media
If we are going to help vulnerable people understand malnutrition that little bit better then it is important that we break through into the public consciousness too!
You may have heard me, Rebecca Stratton, or Lesley Carter from the Malnutrition Task Force, on the radio. We appeared on 156 radio stations, with some sharing the story multiple times at different times of the day. We went out on lots of national radio stations and some really big regional stations too. This was great as it gave us the opportunity to explain some quite complicated messages, hopefully in a straightforward way!
We also achieved some very high-profile media coverage with a full-page spread in the Mail on Sunday, including some quite balanced messaging reaching their huge readership. We also achieved lots of coverage in relevant publications, particularly those read by the care sector which is really pleasing.
Awareness on social media
Seeing the buzz on social media around UK Malnutrition Awareness Week is one of my favourite things about it. It was unbelievable to see my phone start buzzing away early on the Monday morning, and it was just phenomenal to see how that energy was sustained throughout the week. Over 350 of you also gamely provided selfies, telling us what you want to see #MAWconversations about.
An uplift in screening
There is one very measurable output of UK Malnutrition Awareness Week, how many people do we see being screened, either using ‘MUST’ or using our Malnutrition Self-Screening Tool? Our national data collection survey was a huge success. We opened this for UK Malnutrition Awareness Week and heavily promoted it, and kept it open throughout October. At the last count (mid-October), it had over 1200 data entries.
We saw a huge uplift in self-screening during the week, and from analysing the data we can see that 118 people found out that they were either at medium or high risk of malnutrition. We also worked during the week to promote other signposting tools, such as the PaperWeight Armband, the Nutrition Wheel and the Patients Association Nutrition Checklist. So, we hope to see a corresponding uplift in accessing these tools too.
Thank you!
I don’t have room here to thank everybody individually, but I must pay tribute to our partner in this endeavour, the Malnutrition Task Force, who we love working with to make this week a success. I think it is important to note that lots of other individuals and organisations supported us and helped us get our message out further and we are hugely grateful to them for their support. I can’t wait for next year!
Bring on Belfast!
After all the excitement of UK Malnutrition Awareness Week, you might be forgiven for thinking that BAPEN can’t possibly throw any more exciting times your way! You’d be wrong though of course, as Conference is coming!
I have to say, this year’s programme looks great, there is something for everyone. Don’t miss our opening symposium, ‘Good Morning BAPEN, live from Belfast!’, where I will be taking the opportunity to chat with some wonderful people from within the BAPEN family, as well as key friends and allies.
Don’t miss the Nutrition Village which will be set up with practical workstations demonstrating clinical procedures, with trouble shooting tips from experts. And our social media team will be on hand to help you make the most of your time there and share exciting news so that your friends and colleagues don’t miss out on what you are up to.
See you in Belfast on the 26th and 27th November!
P.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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