NEWS
JAY WILLIAMS
SPECIALIST HELP FOR BME COMMUNITY
Community nursing specialist Samuel Clements (left) makes a home visit to Daniel Burrows
Prostate Cancer UK’s only community nurse specialist in Wales is reaching out to black and minority ethnic (BME) men to raise awareness of the disease. Samuel Clements carries out home visits to provide information and to support men with prostate cancer, while the charity also has the use of a ‘man van’, operated with the charity Tenovus. Prostate Cancer UK has commissioned specialist cancer nurse Sarah Fry from the Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales to find better ways of engaging with BME men. To find out more about cancer services available locally, call Mr Clements on 029 2035 1606.
New hospital food standards ‘will put nurses in difficult position’ By Katie Osborne
@NS_reporter
Hospital nurses will not be able to comply with mandatory standards to ensure patients have healthy and nutritious food unless they receive more support, the RCN has warned. Announcing the standards last week, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that hospitals could be fined by commissioners if they fail to provide food that meets the five new standards. They have been drawn up by the Hospital Food Standards Panel, which has representatives of organisations including the RCN and older people’s charities, as well as nutrition nurses. The panel says the standards, which include a requirement to put fish on the menu twice a week and to use no salt when cooking rice and vegetables, should be included in all NHS hospital contracts from April next year. But RCN adviser on acute, emergency and critical care JP Nolan said nurses would be put in an impossible position if staffing
levels were not carefully monitored and if they did not have access to high-quality food around the clock. ‘This is a question of nurses being given enough time to devote to patients,’ said Mr Nolan. ‘NICE has recently recommended that there should be no more than eight patients per nurse on an acute ward. But we know that it can take up to 40 minutes
‘WHAT ARE NURSES TO DO IF FOOD IS UNAVAILABLE?’ to feed just one patient. Eight patients would therefore take one nurse a whole day.’ He added: ‘If quality food is not available, what are nurses supposed to do? We come to work with the intention of doing the best we can for patients, but we need to be facilitated to do that.’ Mr Nolan called on hospital trusts to explore innovative ways of maintaining the availability of good quality food for patients on a 24-hour basis within existing budgets.
In the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s draft code of conduct, there is an explicit statement that nurses will be held personally responsible for ensuring that their patients have adequate nutrition and hydration. Mel Wakeman, a senior lecturer in nutrition at Birmingham City University, said the new hospital food standards, which also cover food for staff provided in canteens, would have a positive effect on nurses’ own diets. ‘Nurses have every right to be provided with healthy food options,’ she said. ‘There is a stereotypical view of canteens offering unhealthy meals, but under these new standards that will have to change.’ The five new quality standards will require every hospital to screen each patient on admission for signs of malnutrition. Individual food plans should then be drawn up to meet their dietary needs. To read the Hospital Food Standards Panel’s report on hospital food and drink go to tiny.cc/HFPS_Report
NURSING september 3 :: vol no 1 ::permission. 2014 11 DownloadedSTANDARD from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 28, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses29 without Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
JAY WILLIAMS
SPECIALIST HELP FOR BME COMMUNITY
Community nursing specialist Samuel Clements (left) makes a home visit to Daniel Burrows
Prostate Cancer UK’s only community nurse specialist in Wales is reaching out to black and minority ethnic (BME) men to raise awareness of the disease. Samuel Clements carries out home visits to provide information and to support men with prostate cancer, while the charity also has the use of a ‘man van’, operated with the charity Tenovus. Prostate Cancer UK has commissioned specialist cancer nurse Sarah Fry from the Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales to find better ways of engaging with BME men. To find out more about cancer services available locally, call Mr Clements on 029 2035 1606.
New hospital food standards ‘will put nurses in difficult position’ By Katie Osborne
@NS_reporter
Hospital nurses will not be able to comply with mandatory standards to ensure patients have healthy and nutritious food unless they receive more support, the RCN has warned. Announcing the standards last week, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that hospitals could be fined by commissioners if they fail to provide food that meets the five new standards. They have been drawn up by the Hospital Food Standards Panel, which has representatives of organisations including the RCN and older people’s charities, as well as nutrition nurses. The panel says the standards, which include a requirement to put fish on the menu twice a week and to use no salt when cooking rice and vegetables, should be included in all NHS hospital contracts from April next year. But RCN adviser on acute, emergency and critical care JP Nolan said nurses would be put in an impossible position if staffing
levels were not carefully monitored and if they did not have access to high-quality food around the clock. ‘This is a question of nurses being given enough time to devote to patients,’ said Mr Nolan. ‘NICE has recently recommended that there should be no more than eight patients per nurse on an acute ward. But we know that it can take up to 40 minutes
‘WHAT ARE NURSES TO DO IF FOOD IS UNAVAILABLE?’ to feed just one patient. Eight patients would therefore take one nurse a whole day.’ He added: ‘If quality food is not available, what are nurses supposed to do? We come to work with the intention of doing the best we can for patients, but we need to be facilitated to do that.’ Mr Nolan called on hospital trusts to explore innovative ways of maintaining the availability of good quality food for patients on a 24-hour basis within existing budgets.
In the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s draft code of conduct, there is an explicit statement that nurses will be held personally responsible for ensuring that their patients have adequate nutrition and hydration. Mel Wakeman, a senior lecturer in nutrition at Birmingham City University, said the new hospital food standards, which also cover food for staff provided in canteens, would have a positive effect on nurses’ own diets. ‘Nurses have every right to be provided with healthy food options,’ she said. ‘There is a stereotypical view of canteens offering unhealthy meals, but under these new standards that will have to change.’ The five new quality standards will require every hospital to screen each patient on admission for signs of malnutrition. Individual food plans should then be drawn up to meet their dietary needs. To read the Hospital Food Standards Panel’s report on hospital food and drink go to tiny.cc/HFPS_Report
NURSING september 3 :: vol no 1 ::permission. 2014 11 DownloadedSTANDARD from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 28, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses29 without Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
