NUTRITION NEWS S P R I N G 2 0 1 6

Produced by Evelyn Newman, nutrition and dietetic advisor for care homes, and NHS Highland’s communications team

The quarterly newsletter for care homes and care-at-home services across the Highlands

‘Nutrition News’ is one today! THANK YOU to every-one who has contrib-uted and helped to pro-duce the first five edi-tions of Nutrition News.

This copy is full of news; details of what I’ve been involved with over the past three months, and what I will be doing to support you in the lead up to the summer period.

Although it is aimed at social care settings I have lots of people wanting to be added to the mailing list from other sectors.

If you’d like to be included in future, please email me.

Nutrition News is a quarterly publication, which is developed with and for social care staff working in the Highlands to understand and improve nutrition and hydration for service users. Please pass it onto any colleagues who may find the information helpful.

Read about new learning and devel-opment opportunities and resources coming up

Find out what the new home enteral feeding contract for Highland will mean

for you and your service users. Highland social care dietetic place-ments are going international! See how service users at The Wade centre are enjoying mealtimes in their temporary home in Kingussie.

In this edition of Nutrition News...

FIFTEEEN care homes in North High-

land are taking part in a pilot six- month

nutrition champion training programme.

There are 12 modules in total and each nomi-

nated participant will be carrying out practical

pieces of work with service users and col-

leagues in their own care home settings putting

the learning into practice. The first event took

place last month in Inverness and feedback

from everyone was overwhelmingly positive.

The picture above shows them working hard

on the day!

We are the

champions

DAY CENTRE service

users from The Wade

Centre have made a tem-

porary move to the St

Vincent’s Hospital in Kin-

gussie, while refurbish-

ments are under way to

the existing care home.

This will have caused a de-

gree of unsettlement for

some and the prospect of

having different food choices

must have added to that, as

they’d always been used to an

excellent standard of meals

and drinks. They needn’t have

worried though, as chef Les

Hargreaves has been working

at St Vincent’s for more than

20 years, providing a very

high standard of service

within a strong ethos of per-

sonal care and consideration

for the small group of frail

elderly people he usually

caters for.

The photos show just how

much the Wade Centre

service users have settled in

and how much they are en-

joying their meals.

Manager Jackie Hunter says

“At a recent meeting day

care attendees reported that

they thought the food was

delicious, the choice is fan-

tastic and Les always comes

in to say hello - provid-

ing that personal touch: eve-

ryone is very happy!”

Mealtimes at St Vincent’s Hospital

for Wade Centre service users

TUCKING IN...

IT can be quite a challenge to encourage

our older service users to take enough flu-

ids each day and this will be due to a num-

ber of factors. Here are some ideas for you

to consider and discuss with your residents

and staff:

Why not try some taste testing events with

new flavours of drinks and see if they might want

to have something different for a change? Menu

fatigue is a real problem for people in long term

care: if you always use the same soft drinks, it

might be good to stimulate taste buds with some-

thing new.

Similarly, some residents might like a choice of

hot drinks such as hot chocolate, malted drinks,

flavoured teas or filter coffees.

Consider having a ‘mocktail’ event using

a selection of non-alcoholic cocktails,

maybe as part of someone’s birthday cele-

bration or special event.

Offer afternoon or cream teas, espe-

cially when visitors come along, and make drink-

ing a more social event.

Try using coloured cups or glasses for people

who have dementia and see if this makes any

difference to their drinking habits.

Challenging

menu fatigue

NUTRICIA Clinical Care has been

awarded the four-year contract to

provide home enteral feeding support

and services to the NHS Highland

area, from this month.

Many of you will already be aware of

their products and all the services we

receive from them.

They currently support all of our tex-

ture modification master classes and

have a nursing service in place to pro-

vide MUST training plus advice and

help for you to support people to be

enterally tube fed at home.

As part of the implementation plan

for the new arrangements, I am de-

lighted that we will have extra nurses,

working alongside Peter Berrie, and

each will have honorary contracts

with NHS Highland. This can only be

of benefit to all of our residents and

services users who might otherwise

have to be cared for in hospital.

I am in the process of arranging, with

local dietitians and Nutricia, for fur-

ther local training events to support

NHS and social care staff working in

all care settings. Staff will benefit

from an increase in localised CPD

opportunities: new and refresher.

We are starting this in the Inverness

area on 1st June (see next page) and

more will be promoted in the coming

weeks so watch this space...

New enteral feeding contract for Highland Further localised

training events set

to get under way

THE work we have been doing with Robert

Gordon University, the Parklands Group

and Highland Home Carers has been se-

lected as a poster presentation at the In-

ternational Confederation of Dietetic Asso-

ciations’ Congress , to take place from 7th-

10th September in Granada, Spain.

It is a huge honour to be selected, as an example

of innovative practice in the UK, by the interna-

tional organising committee, from so many coun-

tries being represented. It shows that Highland

social care settings are leading the way, encourag-

ing other countries to proactively build educa-

tion and training opportunities for students to

work with service users and care staff; building a

workforce fit for the future.

Thanks to everyone who has made this possible.

Watch out for live tweets (@evelynnewman17)

from Spain w/b 7th September and more feedback

in the autumn edition of ‘Nutrition News’.

NATIONAL Dietitians

Week will take the

theme of workplace

health, aimed at im-

proving the health of

the UK workforce.

There will be a different

focus each day of the

week, which I’ll try to

involve you all in, so

watch this space:

Food and mood -

Monday (6th).

Healthy meetings -

Tuesday (7th).

Protecting your

lunch hour - Wednesday

(8th).

Hydration -

Thursday (9th).

Food and movement

- Friday (10th).

Dietitians Week

6-10th June 2016

Granada here we come...

Need my contact details? Email evelyn.newman&nhs.net; twitter @evelynnewman17; phone 07870 868475

As always, I am keen to get more feedback from you all with examples of how you are improving the qual-ity and variety of meals and drinks to your residents and service users. Your photos and stories will also help and encourage others to try new things.

T HERE are so many oppor-

tunities to support staff to

learn and develop their

knowledge about nutrition

and hydration.

We all have different learning styles and

preferences for how we like to keep up

to date.

We know that face-to-face training isn’t

always practical, financially viable or ac-

cessible for many of you, which is why I

have tried to offer a range of opportuni-

ties and options for you to explore or

deliver back at base yourselves.

For instance, the dysphagia game can be

used by any staff as a fun, interactive and

non threatening learning tool especially

for induction of new staff/

The initial cost is more than outweighed

by comparing the costs of staff cover and travel costs for lots of people to attend

training elsewhere in Highland.

The LearnPro MUST module for NHS

Highland and Scottish Care staff is an easy

to access on-line route to update knowl-

edge of nutrition screening, though I ap-

preciate that e-learning isn’t always for

everyone.

BAPEN have a MUST app and calculator

(www.BAPEN.org.uk ) which people with

smart phones or tablets can use

Here are some upcoming learning and

development opportunities to consider to

help you and your staff to support the

nutritional needs of your service users:

New hydration

training resource I have been asked to join a UK working

group to develop a new hydration game.

The University of East Anglia, which has

done so much work on the DRIE study

(http://driestudy.appspot.com) and the

NHS England patient safety lead are also

taking part in the development of this resource with the company who make

‘The Dysphagia Game’ (and other educa-

tional games).

We have made very good progress with

the prototype and hope to test it out

with some care home settings in the near

future.

If any of you would be interested in help-

ing me test the game, please email me.

For more details of The Dysphagia Game,

please look on www.FocusActive.com

The new Eatwell

guide This was launched last month (see image).

If you look on the British Dietetic Asso-

ciation website https://www.bda.uk.com

you’ll be able to click on links that allow

you to download more detailed informa-

tion about it for your own nutrition

folder.

It has been developed and updated with

support from Food Standards Scotland

and provides a much needed clearer pic-

ture of what a healthy balanced diet might

look like today (useful for staff and ser-

vice users).

Tube feeding update:

1st June This half-day event is designed to support

and refresh staff from the 11 care homes

in the Inner Moray Firth area, who are

currently looking after residents requiring

artificial tube feeding.

Local community dietitians will also be on

hand to answer any specific queries about

individuals.

More targeted, on site, training will be

also available in due course, for the small

number of care homes in the North and

West Highland area, caring for artificially

fed service users.

Texture modification

master classes The next one will be held on 15th June in

Fort William. Training for the Caithness

Sutherland areas will follow shortly after.

More details to follow but each will be

open to both NHS and social care staff

who need to understand the issues of

feeding someone with dysphagia.

Managing

malnutrition The British Dietetic Association has pro-

duced a helpful fact sheet for anyone who

needs assistance in gaining weight, with-

out necessarily relying on prescribed

products. Please circulate it to your staff

and cooks, keeping a reference copy in

your resource folder https://

www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/

MalnutritionFactSheet.pdf

**The advice in the fact sheet is generic

and doesn’t replace the more specific

advice that local dietitians will be provid-

ing to support individual care plans. Ask

your community dietitian if you need help

knowing how to safely provide extra pro-

tein and calories for individual service

users**

Nutrition and

hydration

learning and

development

opportunities