A 3-MONTH SURVEY OF ENTERAL TUBE-FEEDING AND PARENTERAL-FEEDING - A BASE-LINE FOR IMPROVEMENT

This paper presents the results of a 3-month survey of tube feeding an d parenteral nutrition in hospital in-patients, undertaken to provide information for the development of guidelines by the Hospitals Nutriti onal Advisory Group and a baseline for future monitoring. This represe nts the first steps in the audit cycle. The results highlighted the fo llowing problems. 1 Total parenteral nutrition is often continued afte r bowel sounds have returned. 2 Enteral tube feeding is often institut ed for only a very short period of time and may be of little nutrition al benefit to the patient. 3 Significantly lower amounts of energy and nitrogen are received by the patients in the enterally tube-fed group than is indicated by their estimated energy and nitrogen requirements . 4 The medical staff noted the start of feeding in 60% of the case no tes, however, the aims of feeding and the reason for commencing feedin g were never documented. Nutritional aims were defined in the case not es by dietitians for all tube-fed and 18 of the 20 patients who were p arenterally fed.