Staff at Leeds Teaching Hospitals continue to be on a mission for outstanding hydration and nutrition care.
We know that by ensuring our patients receive outstanding nutrition and hydration care we can reduce our patients’ length of stay, reduce infections, and improve their overall experience of care whilst in hospital.
Malnutrition is when you do not get all the nutrients (such as energy or protein) your body needs to function properly. In the UK, malnutrition affects more than one in 20 people, and this increases to one in 10 for people over 65. Around one in three patients admitted to UK hospitals are malnourished and this can worsen during their time in hospital.
Eating and drinking well in hospital will help you:
- Feel less tired
- Have more strength to move around and breathe better
- Heal wounds and injuries quicker
- Stay in hospital for less time
- Fight possible infection
- Keep your bladder and bowels regular and healthy
As part of Nutrition Mission several improvement projects are taking place across the Trust.
Many staff and teams have now pledged to support outstanding nutrition and hydration care for their patients following the campaign launch. We’ll be sharing more about how different staff roles are supporting nutrition and hydration on our social media channels.
We are supporting ward-based nutrition champions to promote this work and encouraging wards to review and continue to improve current practice based on patient feedback and ward reports. A ward accreditation scheme has also been launched to recognise and reward great care.
Our staff can be busy but they want you to get better – you can help make sure you are eating and drinking well in hospital too by:
- Letting staff know if you need help at mealtimes.
- Telling staff what foods you like and what you don’t like.
- Asking for a snack or glass of milk between mealtimes.
- Telling your nurse or doctor if you are concerned you are not eating or drinking enough,
- Asking relatives or carers to bring in snacks such as biscuits, small boxes of cereal, crackers, crisps, cake, or long-life puddings such as custard pots.
Chief Nurse Rabina Tindale said back at the launch of the campaign said:
It’s really important we see nutrition as both physiologically and psychologically important to our patients. For me, what’s really important is that we involve everybody that’s part of the multi-professional team – and that can be anybody – to make sure that patients receive the right nutrition that’s personalised for them. That can be anything from food and drink right through to enteral nutrition, but making sure it’s central to their care.