Calling all Hospitals and Care Homes across the UK!
Help make Malnutrition history by participating in BAPEN’s Nutrition Screening Week 1st – 3rd July 2008 to establish malnutrition prevalence and screening practice across the UK today

More than one in four of the 11,000+ admissions to hospital and care homes screened during BAPEN’s first Nutrition Screening Week in 2007 were found to be at risk of malnutrition, the majority at high risk.
The 350+ reporting hospitals & care homes have now received their local data and can benchmark local prevalence and screening practice against the national picture.

Did you participate in 2007?
If YES, please participate again to measure the year-on-year trends in prevalence and practice in your Trust or Care Home and increase the power of the overall data.

If NO, please participate this year to provide your Trust or Care Home with the ability to benchmark your data on prevalence and screening practice against the UK & national picture.

Standards & Inspection in Nutritional Care are being revised and strengthened. Be ahead of the Care Quality Commission and learn about your strengths and weaknesses by participating in NSW08.

Further information on how hospitals and care homes can participate in NSW08 is available by logging on to www.bapen.org.uk. To register your interest & willingness to participate in Nutrition Screening Week, please email the BAPEN Office Bapen@sovereignconference.co.uk or telephone 01527 457850 to receive the registration forms. Forms and Guidance Notes available from the end of May.

Why is BAPEN repeating the Survey?
- To strengthen the data so that it is more representative of care settings across the UK
- To monitor trends year-on-year of prevalence and nutrition screening practice
- To highlight any seasonal variations in prevalence – it’s summer’s time this year!
- To benchmark local prevalence and practice against the UK and national picture

BAPEN’s NSW08 is organised in collaboration with the British Dietetic Association (BDA) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and with the support of the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).
BAPEN’s NSW08 is also supported by the Department of Health in England and the Nutrition Action Plan Delivery Board, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Government and the Chief Nursing Officer in Northern Ireland.

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New DVD Resource Showcases Malnutrition Screening in Sheltered Housing
Nutritionists and dietitians and their industry bodies are being targeted with a new DVD, launched by ERoSH (Essential Role of Sheltered Housing) that shows how effective malnutrition screening programmes for older people can be delivered through local sheltered housing schemes.

The DVD, sponsored by ERoSH and the Care Services Information Partnership and produced by ERoSH and 4 Reel Films, is divided into two parts – one for health professionals, the other for social care. It includes a series of case studies that demonstrate how healthy eating projects and malnutrition screening programmes have dramatically changed the lives of sheltered housing tenants. It is intended to be a useful and informative resource for professionals working in this area and follows the Department of Health’s Nutrition Action Plan, which cites sheltered housing as one area along with domiciliary care where malnutrition screening is not currently implemented, unlike in hospitals and care homes, thereby placing tenants at greater risk of malnourishment.

The malnutrition screening case study showcases the work by the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (BAPEN), the National Association for Care Caterers, ERoSH, the City of Westminster, Richmond Housing Partnership, the Accent Group and Harrogate Neighbours which developed a nutritional screening tool to pilot within sheltered housing schemes. The pilot’s results are expected in late spring 2008.

The DVD features other activities and programmes such as falls prevention, keeping active and healthy ageing, advocacy and service signposting, and a variety of social activities.

Contributors include City of Westminster and Primary Care Trust, Mendip Housing, North Somerset Housing, South Somerset Homes, Islington Primary Care Trust and Drum Housing and the City of London.

The DVD can be viewed at: www.shelteredhousing.org/dvd.
Alternatively, copies can be ordered by telephoning: 01249 654 249 or emailing: info@shelteredhousing.org

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New Pan-European Collaboration Launched into the Diagnosis and Control of Coeliac Disease
€12 million, equivalent to nearly £9.5 million has been invested by the European Commission into a new pan-European partnership which will design an advanced diagnostic tool for the detection and control of coeliac disease, the most under-diagnosed common chronic condition in the UK today.

The collaborative project, entitled Coeliac Disease Management Monitoring Diagnosis using Biosensors and Integrated Chip Systems (CD-MEDICS), will unite technologies to allow point of care diagnostics, combined with embedded communication technologies to directly interface with hospital information systems. It is expected that the development of the technologies involved and their combination in a single product represent a significant advance in diagnostic technology that has the potential to be applied to the detection of a range of other conditions such as, insulin dependent diabetes mellitus or rheumatoid arthritis.

At least 1 in 100 people in the UK is estimated to suffer from coeliac disease. However, according to a recent study, only 12.5% of people with the disease are actually being correctly diagnosed. Recent research showed that the average length of time taken for someone to be diagnosed with coeliac disease from the onset of their symptoms is 13 years.

The project aims to develop a point of care screening device to be implemented at the primary care level. The proposed disposable microchip used to screen for coeliac disease will be used in a portable hand-held device, which will have embedded communication abilities allowing direct storage of test results on a patient’s electronic medical record. This will enable easy follow-up, management and monitoring of the patient’s response to withdrawal of gluten from the diet.

The screening device is capable of carrying out multi-analyte tests with the simultaneous detection of coeliac disease associated auto-antibodies (IgA and IgG gliadin, glutenin and tissue transglutaminase) and HLADQ2 and DQ8 genes. The analysis of the HLA-DQ2 and DQ8 will give information as to the genetic predisposition of an individual to developing coeliac disease, and the detection of the antibodies will allow for the early diagnosis of coeliac disease (and its recurrence if the gluten-free diet is not complied with).

The pan-European collaboration includes a number of UK-based organisations. Coeliac UK, is leading on training of healthcare professionals about the disease and new technology. Newcastle University is responsible for the development and delivery of the development of a sensing technology platform in the screening device. Researchers at King’s College London will be leading on the development of an antiglutenin antibody test and the CD MEDICS project is being managed by a company specialising in research project management, iXscient Ltd.

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