Afternoon tea at health board will promote nutrition

Hywel Dda University Health Board will be taking part in a worldwide afternoon tea to promote nutrition.
The afternoon tea is part of a National ‘Nutrition and Hydration Week’ and is helping to highlight the work university health board staff do every day in helping to improve nutritional intake.
Many patients in hospital have a poor appetite because of their illness so making sure all foods and drinks are as nourishing as possible helps patients to meet their nutritional needs.
The afternoon teas and related activities such as cake baking competitions will mainly be on the afternoon of Wednesday 19th March and will be hosted by a number of wards and departments across the University Health Board.
Karen Thomas, Joint Head of Dietetics, said: “The activities will be a chance for patients and their visitors to be made aware of how important it is to eat well when in hospital and also to provide further awareness and information for all staff.
“We are incrementally introducing the new All Wales Menu Framework across the University Health Board. This includes nutritionally tried and tested recipes incorporated into menus that meet the Welsh Government hospital catering and nutrition standards. It is aimed at providing a wide range of meals to meet all patients needs and to entice people to eat as well as possible – good nutrition really does aid recovery and help to get patients home quicker.
“As part of the week will be promoting the importance of snacks being available between meals, especially for patients who are at nutritional risk or have a poor appetite. It is hoped the All Wales snacks will be gradually introduced across the hospitals once we have the new menus in place.
"The Dietetic service and colleagues are continuing to work hard in our hospitals and the community to provide education and training for health and social care teams to optimise the knowledge of the risks associated with malnutrition, to enable them to undertake nutritional risk screening and provide advice to patients on the ‘Food First approach’ to improving nutrition.”