This year, the ‘Managing Adult Malnutrition in the Community’ team is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Developed as a collaboration by a multi-disciplinary team of nurses, dietitians, GPs and pharmacists, the resource includes a management pathway for identifying and treating malnutrition, along with a pathway for the use of oral nutritional supplements where required.
The driving force behind the development of the ‘Managing Adult Malnutrition in the Community’ pathway and resources was fuelled by the desire to transfer knowledge and skills and provide tools and resources to empower members of the healthcare team to look for malnutrition. This pathway is especially for those at risk to enable early action to improve healthcare outcomes and manage costs. It aims to assist non-nutrition experts in the identification, treatment and prevention of disease-related malnutrition in the community and is endorsed by ten professional and patient associations, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the National Nurses Nutrition Group (NNNG).
Over the past 10 years, the principal resource has been continually updated. Now, in its third iteration, it aims to continue to assist community nurses, other community healthcare professionals and social care teams to provide nutritional care and advice to some of the most vulnerable individuals in society. Feedback from nurses and other healthcare professionals has led to the creation of new materials, focusing on disease-specific areas including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), COVID-19, cancer and sarcopenia who may require more bespoke nutritional advice.
By embracing patient involvement, downloadable patient information sheets have been developed to support healthcare professionals to provide advice and enable patients and carers to access information directly.
The most recent update of the principal resource, launched last year, includes a four-step approach to support nurses in the identification, assessment, management and monitoring of nutritional issues. Considerable thought has been given to new content to help nurses feel more confident about initiating conversations about appetite, dietary intake and hydration with patients and carers. This is to empower them to implement strategies to help break repeated malnutrition cycles, particularly amongst those with long-term conditions and multi-morbidities.
The Malnutrition Pathway website (www.malnutritionpathway.co.uk) now contains a broad, but succinct, range of resources for nurses and other health and care professionals. It includes specific pages for different professional groups, including nurses (www.malnutritionpathway.co.uk/nurses) and care home personnel (www.malnutritionpathway.co.uk/carehomes), as well as advice for patients and carers (www.malnutritionpathway.co.uk/leaflets-patients-and-carers).
As a mark of its success, the site has been visited by over a quarter of a million people since its launch in 2012. Over 60 000 copies of the ‘Managing Adult Malnutrition in the Community’ document and nearly 16 000 of the corresponding patient leaflets were downloaded in 2021 alone. Year-on-year growth in visits and downloads, reflects the ongoing need for guidance and resources to help support the 3 million people in the UK who are at risk of malnutrition, 93% of whom live in the community (Elia and Russell, 2009).
All resources are free to access and download, and the materials have become widely available across the UK via local NHS websites. Accessed by professionals and patients from 150 countries across the world, it is evident the resource remains as relevant today as when it was launched in 2012. We would like to give credit to the many patients and professionals involved in the ongoing development and we hope you find the resource valuable.