Hospital staff are putting malnourished patients being discharged from hospital to other care settings at further risk by not providing essential nutrition information to their health and care colleagues.

Professor Marinos Elia, Chair of BAPEN says: "Continuity of communications concerning malnutrition is essential to ensure that those identified as malnourished in hospital continue to receive the nutritional care and treatment they need once they are discharged from hospital. The results from BAPEN's NSW08 indicate that 5 out of 6 hospitals do not always pass on this essential information."

Given that there are around 8 million people discharged from hospital each year and one-third are malnourished, this means that many patients are leaving without this essential information being made available…