The Mail
London, UK
29 August, 2007



Nurses will weigh all patients in bid to tackle eating disorders

Nurses will weigh every patient who is admitted to hospital (in the UK) under new health guidelines.

Underweight teenagers with suspected eating disorders and overweight people will be targeted by medical staff, who will be told to assess patients on a scale of one to 10 according to their level of risk.

Doctors are worried that patients are not recovering quickly enough after surgery because they have not been eating properly before being admitted to hospital.

Latest figures show nearly two thirds of older patients are at risk of becoming malnourished while being treated in hospital or leaving in worse health than when they arrived.

A report published today by Age Concern warns that although hospital food has improved, older people are still being treated like second-class citizens and many are going hungry on the wards.

The directive to hospital staff will tell them to "police" patients at meal times and monitor their food intake as part of a new programme of nutrition screening.

It has been drawn up by the Council of Europe in consultation with the British Medical Association, the Hospital Caterers Association and the British Dietetic Association.

Health service watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence backs the guidelines, which will be published in October.

All patients must be weighed when they arrive in hospital and those unable to stand on weighing scales will have their arms and waist measured.

Those identified as "at risk" will have their food served on colour-coded trays to remind nurses that they require special attention. Meal times will also be protected to ensure that patients eating are not disturbed by doctors on ward rounds.

Nurses used to weigh patients routinely but the practice has stopped because of their increasing workload and shortages of staff.

The lack of monitoring has been blamed for a rise in bedblocking because malnourished patients tend to remain in hospital long after they should have been discharged.

Neil Watson-Jones, chairman of the Hospital Caterers Association, said medical staff had to realise the care of patients extended beyond operations.

"We have to focus on the whole wellbeing of the patient," he said.

"It's not just about poor diet but that patients can also be put at nutritional risk because of an operation. The drugs they are given can alter their taste or appetite and this has to be monitored."

Patients' groups dismissed the guidelines as a "stunt". Vanessa Bourne of the Patients Association said: "Too many nurses think they are too grand to watch patients and to make sure that they eat.

"They would rather be off chatting around the nurses' station, so basic measures such as weighing have fallen off the list of priorities.

"The majority of complaints we receive are not about the quality of food but about whether patients can eat it or not."

The directive will also recommend that hospital meals are improved so that food is easy for patients to eat, appetising and healthy. The Government has already spent £40 million revamping hospital menus, introducing new dishes devised by leading chefs such as Loyd Grossman.

However, there have been complaints that the new menus are not simple enough.

Some hospital chiefs have had to change the name of one of the meals from "navarin of lamb" to "lamb casserole" because patients refused to eat it.


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oh boy... I can imagine thinking twice before going to the hospital when I was heavier.

I just wish they had kept up taking blood pressure here on regular clinic visits. I wouldn't have had heart disease then.

This is new? I've not worked in a hospital setting for many years...but we always did a weight as part of the assessment. Some we didn't weigh right away....but as soon as we could!

I've been in 3 different hospitals in Orange county in the last 10 years. Only one weighed me upon addmittence. It also weighed me 12 hours later to see how well the diuretics were working (lost 9lbs). The second hospital only weighed me when transferring me out of the ICU to a regular room. But the last hospital only weighed me once in 3 visits and it was the 2nd day of the second visit. Yet, I received diuretic shots in all 3 hospitals since I have CHF.

There is a difference in the reputation of all three with the last having a tainted one. What a surprise, huh? Not all hospitals are created equal.

Glennette... start a journal so I can visit. I, too, have CHF.

The down side is that even more people may defer medical care because they are embarrassed to be weighted at the Dr.'s office and worse to scolded because of their weight. I have a phobia of Dr's anyway and when I was at my highest weight I avoided them even more because of my humiliation.

We too weigh every patient. If not on admission then soon afterwards as pharmacy usually wants it for many medication dosages such as anticoagulants. They are dosed and monitored according to weight.
Leah

WOW!! ICU especially should weigh you!! They should have bed scales....and actually they may even have beds with scales built in. I sure hope so, as almost all meds given in ICU/CCU are based on weight.

I may be wrong, but every time I have been admitted....and at least 80% of the time with docs, I have been weighed.

Yes, now that you mention it, it had to be a bed scale that they weighed me with in the ICU. They only told me my weight the morning before I left,but I hadn't been out of bed at that time (had DVT after being treated for a stroke in the ER for 12 hrs). So they had to be monitering my weight the entire time in the ICU!