Hospitals Do Not Cater for Patients Diet Needs

Hospitals have been found not to cater for diet needs of patients, a review has discovered.
An assessment of eah patient’s diet needs needs to be undertaken. However, this is not always undertaken.
Scottish hospitals are failing to provide tailored meals for patients with special diet needs.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon stated that she anticipates improvements will be made after the first review of hospital food highlighted a mixed picture for across the UK.
Health boards scored their own meals and recorded scores above 90% for meeting nutritional needs, like offering five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
However, when it related to catering for patients with specific dietary needs due to medical conditions the results were a great deal poorer.
Across Scotland, a quarter of patients who were eligible to benefit from a special diet were not assessed for one, according to the audit.
In NHS Tayside only 42% were assessed for a set diet and in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that proportion was 54%.
Age Scotland, the elderly care charity, stated that often older people leave Scottish hopsitals more malnourished than they entered.
The diet needs of patients ought to be assessed unpon admittance to hospital, enabling any malnourished patients to be spotted. However, this report shows that only NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde assess 90% of new arrivals.
The proportions are 50% and 45% in Borders and Tayside respectively.