Excellence in Patient Programmes

Summary of work

Malnutrition is both a cause and consequence of ill health and affects three million people in the UK, and one in ten (1.3 million) older people.

M&F Health supports BAPEN and the Malnutrition Task Force in their annual UK Malnutrition Awareness Week campaign, which is focused on raising awareness of the causes, signs and symptoms of malnutrition so that people at risk can be identified earlier and managed better.

In 2019, M&F Health created a strategy that shed light on public misconceptions about weight and ageing, specifically exposing popular myths around frailty in later life. This story was packaged for the general public in a media campaign that outstripped previous campaign results. The campaign also targeted healthcare professionals with the story and asked them to take action to help vulnerable patients who may not be aware of the risk to their health as they age.

The campaign employed multiple additional tactics, and worked a small budget hard to create a real stir. M&F Health, BAPEN and the MTF were successful in communicating key messages and collecting support from stakeholder organisations to help spread this vital message.

Judges' comments

M&F Health designed a great campaign based on clear benchmarking. The objectives were smart and strategies were well designed to meet them. The campaign was highly targeted and certainly maximised the budget available. The project really built on last year’s success, having been broadened to a wider patient group. All in all, the judges felt that it was a great campaign which delivered really strong results.