Excellence in Collaboration and Partnership

Summary of work

’The management of care for people with long-term conditions should be proactive, holistic, preventative and patient-centred’.

There are over 23,000 patients in the UK receiving Home Enteral Tube Feeding (HETF), and an increasing number being discharged; in one of our Homecare accounts alone from 2010 - 2017 there has been a 52% increase in HETF. Optimising quality of life in HETF patients has been found to be challenging. It is important patients receive continuous support. Supporting patients and carers of HETF patients is a key part of the Dietitian’s and Homecare company’s role. It is recommended that all patients who receive enteral nutrition should be kept fully informed and have access to appropriate sources of information and support, in formats, languages and ways that are suited to an individual’s requirements. Because of this we worked in partnership and collaboratively with the NHS Trusts we supply HETF service producing a patient newsletter. The patient homecare newsletter is ‘EN Today’ and was developed with the NHS Dietitian, Fresenius Kabi Account Manager, Homecare Nurse and Scientific Affairs Dietitian. ‘EN Today’ is produced in seven of our NHS accounts, circulated to over 2,000 Homecare patients with editions issued bi-annually.

Judges' comments

The EN Today Newsletters had good local insight into the needs of Home Enteral Feed patients. It had nice collaboration which used good insight to shape the programme content and direction.