Forgotten Not Fixed: The Unrecognised Burden of Malnutrition in England

Published in House magazine, April 2018

By Katherine Sykes

The increasing number of cases of malnutrition in hospital and associated deaths reflect a system-wide failure to consistently screen and manage patients who are either malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. Drawing upon malnutrition data broken down by NHS trust for 2015/16, new research commissioned by the British Specialist Nutrition Association (BSNA) Forgotten not Fixed: Tackling the Increasing Burden of Malnutrition in England has found that more than half the hospital trusts in England are significantly under-reporting malnutrition rates compared to accepted national estimates. This means that the overall incidence of malnutrition is likely to be significantly under recorded, pointing to a much more significant problem than the available data suggests. Recognising this problem, a recent inquiry into malnutrition amongst the elderly by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger has recommended that “Public Health England and its equivalent bodies in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, should regularly record and publish up-to-date data on the extent of malnutrition amongst older people”.