Nutritional Care Wessex newsletter

The Wessex AHSN nutrition programme is initially focusing on reducing malnutrition in older people. 14% of older people in the UK (approx 1 million people) are at risk of malnutrition (under-nutrition).

Public expenditure related to malnutrition in the UK in 2007 was estimated to be over £13 billion and at least £250 million (approx 4% of total UK costs) for the Wessex region.

The programme aims to:

• Develop and implement an approach for reducing malnutrition in older people, providing evidence of measurable improvements in nutrition, health and wellbeing outcomes
• Develop and test a toolkit that develops capability drawing on learning of evidence based practice, for adoption by local Wessex (and wider) initiatives to improve nutritional care in the elderly
• Facilitate and lead learning workshops across Wessex as part of encouraging the adoption of the evidence based approaches to reducing malnutrition in the elderly
• Develop and apply an evaluation framework, to support the evaluation of nutritional initiatives, and their spread
• Through partnership and collaboration, develop and coordinate communication through appropriate channels to facilitate the sharing of good practice location and nationally.

The programme’s first newsletter, available to download below, highlights initiatives forming part of the programme. For more information, please contact nutrition@wessexahsn.net