Mental health trust highlights importance of good food and nutrition

Local mental health and learning disability organisation, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has highlighted the importance of nutrition to good mental health by updating its food and nutrition policy. The policy was launched today at a special event.

Trust staff attended the event to find out how to improve the nutrition of the people they provide care for. People who use services provided by the Trust also attended to find out how the updated policy will impact on them.

The updated policy comes in response to an audit of the Trust’s original food and nutrition policy which found that more emphasis was needed on identifying the individual nutritional needs of people using the Trust’s services and making sure those needs are met. It was also identified that the original policy needed modernising to bring it in line with new government guidelines relating to food and nutrition.

People who use Trust services have been heavily involved in updating the new policies to make sure it fully meets individual needs.

The Trust’s nutrition and dietetic service manager Neema Golez McTomney said, "The event was a great success and gave staff the chance to not only pick up a copy of the updated policy for their inpatient areas, but also find out how to implement it into their daily practice. It was also a good opportunity for service users to come along to learn all about the new policy and how they may benefit from it."

Advanced dietitian Helen Morgan added, "It is essential that people with mental health problems and learning disabilities eat well, and by meeting the specific nutritional needs of people who use our services it is possible to speed up the recovery process and significantly improve physical health. The updated food and nutrition policy will help all our staff to do this and make a real difference to the overall wellbeing of people in their care."