Having the right nutrition and hydration is essential to residents’ wellbeing, yet malnutrition is one of the most pressing nutritional issues care homes are facing. It’s estimated that some 35% of residents enter a care home with malnutrition (1).

One of the key messages for Nutrition and Hydration Week is ‘making a difference every day’ and that’s exactly what apetito plans to do.

From Monday 13th to Friday 17th, between 9am – 11am, its dietitians, Emily Stuart and Maia Fergus-O’Grady will be offering live chat support and answering your questions on nutrition and hydration. To ask Emily and Maia questions, or get advice about any aspect of nutrition, sign up using this link - apetito.link/askadietitian

apetito will also be sharing top tips on how care home staff can help provide good nutrition and hydration support to their residents. The Top Tips to Good Nutrition will be available on https://www.apetito.co.uk/news on the Monday 13th March.

Emily explains why apetito is so keen to share its expertise around nutrition:

“Malnutrition affects approximately three million people in the UK. It’s such a prevalent condition because it can go easily undetected, is underdiagnosed, and can be poorly understood, despite being incredibly costly to social care and largely preventable.

“Nutrition and Hydration Week has enormous value in signposting the issue and as a company that has immense expertise within its team, we are keen to share our knowledge and support care homes dealing with malnutrition.

“We hope by answering questions and sharing our Top Tips, we’re able to help those caring for residents who would value some helpful guidance.”

To find out more about apetito’s care homes meal service visit carehomes.apetito.co.uk/ or call 0808 239 2399

References

(1) BAPEN (2021).online. BAPEN Publishes Results of Biggest Malnutrition Survey Ever Undertaken in Care Homes.