As Nutrition and Hydration Week 2016 draws to a close it feels right to reflect on how the week has gone. This could be summarised quite simply – amazing.
As you will know the aim of the week is to create a global movement that will focus energy, activity and engagement on nutrition and hydration as an important part of quality care, experience and safety improvement. What has been really heartening this year has been to see a much wider focus hydration and the prevention of dehydration than in previous years.
This focus has come from a wide range of settings from colleagues at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust’s Think Drink project to organisations, such as SPAR, encouraging their staff to drink more. This can only be a good thing.
During the week we have seen examples of hydration awareness stands in hospital foyers, ‘mocktail’ sessions in care homes, twitter chats and, of course, the Global Tea Party event – all which raise awareness of the importance of good hydration. We have even seen colleagues from the Care Quality Commission supporting the hydration agenda.
The week also included the launches of the European Hydration Institute online hydration course for healthcare professionals and Public Health England’s ‘The Eatwell Guide’ which now displays drinks recommendations which make clear that adults should be aiming to have 6 to 8 glasses of fluids per day ideally from water, lower fat milks, and unsweetened tea or coffee.
I believe that this increased awareness of the importance of good hydration, and the prevention of dehydration, provides an ideal opportunity to start to talk about the wider patient safety issues that could be prevented if more attention was simply given to how much people are drinking.
I am sure that we will see Nutrition and Hydration Week 2017 – perhaps we should have a Think Kidneys Thursday to really spread the message ‘Think Kidneys, Keep Hydrated’
Caroline Lecko
Caroline has led on nutrition and patient safety since joining the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) in 2006 and has subsequently transferred to the patient safety domain team within the NHS England. She has worked on a range of national and international projects to raise awareness of the importance of good nutritional care to prevent avoidable harm to patients and service users.
Caroline was a lead for the development of the commissioning guidance for Nutrition and Hydration which was published in the autumn of 2015.