Dietetics
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About the service
The dietetic service provides specialised dietetic advice for people with a mental illness and, or learning disability, to enable them to have an adequate nutritional intake so that they are able to live life to the full.
The service aims to:
- Provide evidenced-based, specialist therapeutic dietary advice for service users within the care pathways.
- Optimise the nutritional status of service users, improve clinical outcomes and prevent further complications as part of the multidisciplinary care teams.
- Prevent or reduce the incidence of nutrition-related illness.
- Be a specialised and contemporary resource for health and social care professionals, service users, carers and caterers, including delivering nutrition training for healthcare professionals.
- Work in partnership with higher education institutions, commissioners and acute hospitals including the provision of student training placements.
- Undertake research and audit in order to add to the evidence base of dietetic practice.
Dietitians are also involved in ensuring compliance with a number of Trust targets such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulation on nutrition, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on nutrition support, obesity and eating disorders, monitoring of the nutritional component of catering provision and monitoring and award of the enteral feeds contract.
Why would someone choose the service?
The nutrition and dietetic service are provided by registered dietitians. Loss of appetite or unintended weight loss can cause a great deal of distress for service users and their relatives.
We work with service users and carers to provide expert, practical dietetic advice about which foods to eat to help them to feel better. We also advise about nutritional supplements.
Staff you may meet
- Administrative staff provide essential support to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. This can be in a variety of different settings, with administrators working as a receptionist in a clinic or a clerk on a ward. They may also be working closely with a consultant as a medical secretary.
- Dietitians use the science of food to help people to make good choices about food and lifestyle. Nutrition is an important part of recovery and wellbeing. All service users admitted to a Trust ward have their nutritional state assessed.