Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making food and nutrition assessments a statutory requirement in discharge care plans for patients leaving hospital.

Clinicians decide when a patient is medically ready for discharge, based on a set of criteria. The Hospital discharge and community support guidance sets out that multidisciplinary teams working across health and social care should plan and include information about post-discharge care and should ensure that general practice and other primary care providers are linked into all discharge planning. The Hospital discharge and community support guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hospital-discharge-and-community-support-guidance

Diagnosis and detection are key, and health staff are trained to spot the early warning signs of malnutrition so effective individual treatment can be put in place. Tools and guidance are available through a range of organisations for health and social care professionals to identify and treat malnutrition and access appropriate training.

All National Health Services are recommended to adhere to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) clinical guideline, Nutrition support for adults: oral nutrition support, enteral tube feeding and parenteral nutrition, code CG32, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg32

This sets out the recommendations, based on the best available evidence, for the organisation, screening, and delivery of nutritional support in hospitals and the community. This includes screening for malnutrition and risk of malnutrition. The NICE guidelines recommend that all hospital inpatients on admission and all outpatients at their first clinic appointment should be screened for malnutrition. Screening should be repeated weekly for inpatients and when there is clinical concern for outpatients. People in care homes should be screened on admission and when there is clinical concern.

NHS England’s Nursing Directorate is leading on a review and refresh of the National Nutrition and Hydration guidance, which builds on the NHS England’s previous Commissioning Excellent Nutrition and Hydration guidance 2015-2018, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nut-hyd-guid.pdf