Patients: Safety
(asked on 21st January 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department issues on safeguards in hospitals for patients who are heavily medicated while they eat.
It is for health and social care providers to develop local nutrition and hydration policies and there are a number of best practice resources and guidelines available to help providers do this.
Nursing staff understand the importance of proper nutrition and will follow guidelines in assessing patients for their ability to swallow safely. From this they can make judgements about a patient’s capability to eat and drink safely and adequately, which will include taking into account whether they are heavily medicated or not.
The National Patient Safety Agency and the Royal College of Nursing published a series of factsheets in 2009, setting out the key characteristics of good nutritional care in healthcare environments.
http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/resources/?entryid45=59865
It includes the Council of Europe 10 key characteristics of good nutritional care in hospitals, which recommends that all patients are screened on admission to identify the patients who are malnourished or at risk of becoming malnourished; all patients are re-screened weekly; and all patients have a care plan which identifies their nutritional care needs and how they are to be met.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Quality standard for nutrition support in adults
defines clinical best practice for adults in hospital and the community who are at risk of malnutrition. And NICE Nutrition support in adults: Oral nutrition support, enteral tube feeding and parenteral nutrition
offers best practice advice to help healthcare professionals correctly identify people in hospital and the community who need nutrition support, and enable them to choose and deliver the most appropriate nutrition support at the most appropriate time.