Nutrition - Nutrition Now (2007 to 2009)

In early 2007 the Department of Health convened a multi-stakeholder Nutrition Summit, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to explore the challenges of malnutrition and to develop a plan to address them. Subsequently a survey of RCN members showed that nurses did not feel they had adequate time or educational support to prioritise nutritional care and half of the respondents felt that patients were at risk of malnutrition in their own place of work.

In response, the RCN, in partnership with Abbott Nutrition, developed the highly impactful Nutrition Now campaign. This three year campaign was designed to evolve over time as the needs of the nurses changed.

Guidance document and workshops

To ensure full endorsement and credibility for the campaign, a multidisciplinary stakeholder meeting was held with the objective of producing a peer endorsed guidance document, specifically for nurses, outlining the principles of good nutrition and hydration. The document entitled 'RCN Principles for nutrition and hydration' launched the campaign at Congress in April 2007.

Following the launch, RCN learning and development facilitators delivered workshops to over 1,200 health and social care practitioners. The programme was developed by campaign partners the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) and BAPEN to help members of the multidisciplinary team better understand how they could improve the care provided in their own settings by collaboration with colleagues.

National train-the-trainer programme

Year two of the campaign focused on developing resources and preparing for the roll out of a national train-the-trainer programme. In addition to the principles, the supporting materials included: a hydration toolkit providing practical advice for healthcare staff on how to minimise the potential from dehydration, and the Improving Nutritional Care CD Rom and memory stick (developed with BAPEN and the NPSA) containing documents to support and deliver a workshop, with ideas to enhance nutritional care and initiate change.

Sustaining goals and outcomes

The RCN also convened a Director of Nursing Summit on how to sustain the goals and outcomes of the campaign. This activity has led to RCN involvement in several government led initiatives including: developing a training package to support the highly successful workshop that had been developed with BAPEN and the NPSA; raising awareness of the role that nurse executives have in ensuring the fundamentals of safe, quality care are delivered and promoting the use of the audit tools to encourage continuous quality of care.

In the final year the focus shifted more towards train-the-trainer educational workshops, cascading the Nutrition Now principles to an even wider audience.

Campaign outcomes

Over the three years the Nutrition Now campaign delivered key messages about nutrition to a readership of over 2.2 million through the resulting media coverage. It empowered nurses on the front-line to play a driving role in improving standards of nutrition. It successfully influenced nutritional policy, providing nurses with the practical tools, support and evidence they need to make nutrition a priority in their workplace.