Throughout October healthcare professionals working in health or social care settings are being encouraged to collect data on the malnutrition risk and nutritional care of their residents or patients. The data should be submitted to the BAPEN and Malnutrition Action Group portal as part of a push to raise awareness of malnutrition through the third annual UK Malnutrition Awareness Week, MAW, (October 5 – 12, 2020).
This awareness week has even more relevance this year since the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has left many older people and people with serious conditions that raise their risk of malnutrition without access to their usual support networks.
The goals of UK Malnutrition Awareness Week 2020 are to:
• Raise awareness of malnutrition (and dehydration) among the public and encourage the use of self-screening tools
• Help health and social care professionals understand their role in preventing and managing malnutrition and understand the importance of routinely screening for malnutrition
• Help people working in the voluntary sector understand what they can do to help identify people who may be at risk of malnutrition
• Demonstrate what good nutritional care looks like and help organisations and individuals achieve it
• Increase investment in treatment and prevention of malnutrition and engage key stakeholders and policy makers
• Make sure the wider public sector, local and national government, commercial organisations, third sector and voluntary sector organisations understand what they can do to tackle malnutrition.
