This year’s Nutrition and Hydration Week focuses on the value of food and drink in maintaining health and wellbeing in health and social care.  It provides an opportunity for us to position infection prevention goals as part of meeting people’s fundamental care needs, underlining the importance of good hydration and nutrition in supporting bodily functions and the immune system.

As a preventative strategy hydration often receives less emphasis than nutrition despite the effects of dehydration being more rapid than malnutrition.  The importance of recognising and treating dehydration to avoid kidney failure and poor clinical outcomes shifts the emphasis towards restorative rather than preventative care.  Yet identifying people who need assistance or prompting to consume enough drinks throughout the day and prioritising this need as a fundamental care goal is vital to recognise early the risk of low-intake dehydration and take action to prevent it. 

Whereas assessing risk of malnutrition is embedded in care systems using the MUST (malnutrition universal screening tool), there is no freely available validated tool to identify people at risk of low-intake dehydration.  Recognising and supporting those in need of help, setting a fluid intake target for them and monitoring the drinks they consume are all possible without use of a designated tool, but the absence of one might explain, at least in part, why there is less emphasis on hydration than nutrition as a care priority. 

Being in a health or social care setting can itself limit a person’s ability and agency to drink and eat what they want as and when they choose irrespective of their level of dependency on others.  This means it’s incumbent on care staff to ensure care routines and processes facilitate drinking and eating opportunities, including meeting people’s preferences by offering choice.

It's also about understanding what concerns a person may have and how this influences what and when they drink and eat.  Social factors, including fear of incontinence and fear of falling when going to the toilet are important barriers to drinking sufficient fluids that need to be recognised and addressed.

Prioritising drinking and eating as part of person-centred care enables multiple health and care goals to be met simultaneously, challenging the mindset of this being one task among many that compete for attention.  There are some great examples of campaigns and interventions to improve hydration and nutrition in health and social care settings.  There are also opportunities to align this work with wider initiatives, including EndPJparalysis, SipTilSend and DrEaMing to name but a few.  So, there are many ways to make the connection between good fundamental care and improved outcomes.

The highlight of Nutrition and Hydration Week is the Global Tea Party on Wednesday 19^th March, reflecting the important social dimension of drinking and eating.  How ever you mark this event it’s good to know you’ll be joining very many others in a collective effort to raise awareness about the importance of eating and drinking for health and wellbeing. Of course, a week-long focus once a year can only truly be of value if it encourages a commitment to prioritising this fundamental aspect of care each and every day.

So, let’s capitalise on this event by aligning our messages about preventing infection with the wider goals and benefits of preventative fundamental care.

And don’t forget to have fun along the way!

Professor Jacqui Prieto