Nutrition and Hydration Week 2016

In 2015, 32 Nations pledged their support to Nutrition and Hydration Week, and the website http://nutritionandhydrationweek.co.uk/ had over 9000 visits from 49 countries.

This year, the awareness week takes place from the 14th-20th March. The mission is to “create a global movement that will reinforce and focus energy, activity and engagement on nutrition and hydration as an important part of quality care, experience and safety improvement in health and social care settings.”

The following 10 key characteristics of ‘good nutrition and hydration care’, taken from the Nutrition and Hydration Week website, are a requirement to meet the Hospital Food Standards SC19, set out in the NHS Contract for hospitals:

1. Screen all patients and service-users to identify malnourishment or risk of malnourishment and ensure actions are progressed and monitored.
2. Together with each patient or service user, create a personal care/support plan enabling them to have choice and control over their own nutritional care and fluid needs.
3. Care providers should include specific guidance on food and beverage services and other nutritional & hydration care in their service delivery and accountability arrangements.
4. People using care services are involved in the planning and monitoring arrangements for food service and drinks provision.
5. Food and drinks should be provided alone or with assistance in an environment conducive to patients being able to consume their food (Protected Mealtimes).
6. All health care professionals and volunteers receive regular raining to ensure they have the skills, qualifications and competencies needed to meet the nutritional and fluid requirements of people using their services.
7. Facilities and services providing nutrition and hydration are designed to be flexible and centred on the needs of the people using them, 24 hours a day, every day.
8. All care providers are to have a nutrition and hydration policy centred on the needs of users, and is performance managed in line with local governance, national standards and regulatory frameworks.
9. Food, drinks and other nutritional care are delivered safely.
10. Care providers should take a multi-disciplinary approach to nutrition and hydrational care, valuing the contribution of all staff, people using the service, carers and volunteers working in partnership.

 Watch this video from the Nutrition and Hydration Week organisers to find out more information on each of these 10 points.

Good nutrition and hydration can help people to recover more quickly from an illness.
This week is a platform to raise awareness and make sure carers know the importance of a patient’s nutrition and hydration- to improve or maintain their wellbeing.

At Embrace-learning, we provide quality e-learning resources to the health and social care sector. Our online training course, “Nutrition, Diet and Health”, will benefit learners with little or no previous knowledge, enabling them to gain an understanding of the importance of providing meals that fulfil the nutritional requirements of the human body. The course covers topics like:

• The Eatwell Plate
• 5-a-day Campaign
• Nutrition during pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age
• Nutrition for Vegetarians, Vegans and Ethnic Minority Groups

View our catalogue of 50+ e-learning courses and purchase your online nutrition course at www.embrace-learning.com.  ​