Nutrition and Hydration Week: March 16 th -20 th 2015: Cardiff and Vale UHB

A Global Challenge

The mission of Nutrition and Hydration Week is to create a global movement that will reinforce and focus energy, activity and engagement on nutrition and hydration as an important part of quality care, experience and safety improvement in health and social care settings. The aims of this week were to widely promote key characteristics for good nutritional care, protected mealtimes, nutrition advocates, standards for good nutrition in all settings, sharing good nutrition and hydration practices and providing education to enhance knowledge (N&H2015). Throughout Cardiff and Vale UHB a number of activities were undertaken to promote nutrition and hydration as a fundamental of care. We took this opportunity to showcase our 5 key characteristics for Good Nutritional Care.

Health Promotion

A number of stands were displayed around the Health Board sites to promote various important topics within the hospital and home environment. The topics included healthy eating, eating on a budget, hydration and food fortification. To underpin these messages we worked closely with the local food co-ops who provided and displayed a selection of fresh, vibrant fruit and vegetables, a food waste initiative representative to promote reduce costs of healthy eating, and the speech and language department to promote good nutrition and hydration for those patients on a texture modified diet. To help promote the importance of healthy eating, free fruit was available on the stands. It is estimated that 520 people took a banana, apple or orange. As awareness is a major factor affecting healthy eating, prize hampers were purchased from a local fresh fruit and vegetable company and the audience were asked to complete a quiz relating to healthy eating to win the hampers. This was to help generate discussion around the daily topics and the highest scorer of 53 entries won the hampers at the end of the week. Practical hydration tips were promoted to ensure hydration awareness and the symptoms of dehydration. Free bottles of water were given out to the public and at ward level additional beverage rounds were provided with the use of nourishing drinks to highlight the importance of hydration at ward level. Literature was provided for these take home nutrition messages. To further promote Nutrition and Hydration week our activities and key messages were posted on the UHB intranet site and from the UHB Twitter account.

Afternoon Tea

To highlight the importance of high energy and high protein snacks whilst in hospital we took this opportunity to join with the main initiative of the Nutrition and Hydration Week and provide afternoon tea to a selection of wards across the UHB reaching an estimated 700 patients. Afternoon tea was led by Catering supervisors, ward based caterers, dietitians, dietetic assistants and supported by ward nursing staff. It comprised of the usual tea round items such as biscuits and cakes and additional items such as sandwiches and scones, it also provided custard pots and yoghurts for those patients on texture modified diet. The feedback from patients, relatives and staff was very positive and demonstrated how effective the ‘food first’ approach is within the hospital setting. Further work is ongoing to review how we can incorporate ‘afternoon tea’ on a more frequent basis within our meal services across the UHB.

Multi-disciplinary team working

Involvement from the wider multi-disciplinary team provided an enthusiastic and positive message that good nutrition and hydration is part of everyone’s role. Speech and Language Therapists were involved to promote good nutrition and hydration for those patients on a texture modified diet by being present on the health promotion stands. Nursing staff actively engaged in the campaign and it raised awareness levels amongst all ward based multi-disciplinary staff. Excellent and robust support was provided by caterers throughout the week.

Chief Executive Visit

Adam Cairns’ the Chief Executive of Cardiff and the Vale UHB attended an afternoon tea round on a ward at the University Hospital of Wales. He was interested to hear the benefits of additional snacks and drinks for the patients and agreed that Nutrition and Hydration are key factors in improving patient wellbeing and recovery while in hospital. Mr Cairn’s engaged with the ward manager, nursing staff, and members of the dietetic and occupational therapy teams and discussed how nutrition and hydration is everyone’s responsibility, how every contact counts, and the challenges acquiring and keeping specialist equipment to enable patients to eat and drink safely and independently.