A team approach to the audit of nutritional care in community hospitals

This paper discusses a collaborative multidisciplinary exploratory audit project to examine the nutritional care received by patients within Norwich Community Health Partnership NHS Trust. A project team was formed to identify the key areas and develop an audit tool. An audit assistant was employed to assist the team with this particular project. Eleven community hospitals were involved; catering, nursing, dietetic staff and patients took part. The key areas that the audit project examined were nutritional adequacy, documentation and recording of nutritional assessments, nurses>> nutritional knowledge base, patients>> perceptions of the meal service, and good nutritional practice. Overall the results were better than initially anticipated. Where pertinent issues were identified, discussions are taking place within the Trust to write an action plan, implement recommendations and re-audit.