Journal of General Practice Nursing (GPN) | March 2017

Back to journal

Reducing undernutrition in older people

Reducing undernutrition in older people
Editorial

Article topics: Malnutrition, Nutrition, Undernutrition

Malnutrition (undernutrition) affects three million people in the UK (Brotherton et al, 2010) and is responsible for health and social care costs exceeding £19 billion annually in England alone, half of which is due to people over 65 (Elia, 2015). While it is accepted that good nutrition is important to maintain health, there is a general lack of responsibility and ownership around the problem of undernutrition in primary care. Lack of understanding, including how to identify and treat it is also widespread. Despite National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines stating that all healthcare professionals should be involved in nutritional screening and treatment (NICE, 2006), there are barriers stopping primary care nurses from screening, i.e. challenges of organisational culture and competing priorities (Green and James, 2013; Green et al, 2014).

If you would like to write for the Journal of General Practice Nursing, please contact Binkie:
binkie@jcn.co.uk