12 March 2019

The Dietetics team at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is getting behind Nutrition and Hydration Week, which runs from March 11-17, with a series of events.

Tina Cheung (Nutrition Support Lead Dietitian), Simon Wright (Chief Executive), Lorraine Eades (Head of Dietetics and Care Closer to Home Centre Manager)  and Wendy Ballard (Medicines Management Dietitian)

Nutrition and Hydration Week is aimed at highlighting, promoting and celebrating improvements in the provision of nutrition – locally, nationally and globally. Its purpose is to bring people together to create energy, focus and fun in order to highlight and educate people on the value of food and drink in maintaining wellbeing in health and social care.

The Dietetics team will be running an information stall from 10am-2pm on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in the main inpatient reception at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH), and on Friday next to the canteen at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford (PRH). Tina Cheung, Nutrition Support Lead Dietitian, has also written on the subject of malnutrition. Her blog can be read here

Tina said: “Around 3 million people in the UK are at risk of malnutrition, and as a team we want to raise awareness of the risks and promote the good practices that can help to prevent it.

“We are using Nutrition and Hydration Week to introduce ‘MUST’ and ‘Think Food’, initiatives that will be coming to our wards soon. MUST is a 5-step screening tool to identify if an individual is malnourished, at risk of malnutrition or obese. It also includes management guidelines which can be used to develop a care plan. A ‘Think Food’ approach means using ordinary foods and drinks to increase your nutritional intake

“On Wednesday it’s national ‘Swallow Awareness Day’ where we will collaborate with Speech and Language Therapists to raise awareness of IDDSI (International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative). On ‘Thirsty Thursday’, the Dementia team will be joining us at the Mytton Restaurant to promote hydration and last but not least, on ‘Fruity Friday’ we will be reinforcing the government recommendation of achieving ‘5-a-day’.

“We will move forward from the week working closely with the Trust’s catering team to provide nourishing snacks to all wards.”

SaTH’s Dietitians work across RSH and PRH, providing nutritional expertise to patients and staff. They also provide individualised treatment plans for patients on community hospital wards, home enteral feeding and patients in their own homes referred by interdisciplinary care teams in the community.