Food and nutritional care in hospitals: how to prevent undernutrition-report and guidelines from the Council of Europe

In 1999 the Council of Europe decided to collect information regarding Nutr ition programmes in hospitals and for this purpose a network consisting of national experts from eight of the Partial Agreement member states was esta blished. The aim was to review the current practice in Europe regarding hos pital food provision, to highlight deficiencies and to issue guidelines to improve the nutritional care and support of hospitalized patients. Five maj or problems seemed to be common in this context: 1) lack of clearly defined responsibilities; 2) lack of sufficient education; 3) lack of influence of the patients; 4) lack of co-operation among all staff groups; and 5) lack of involvement from the hospital management. To solve the problems highligh ted, a combined 'team-effort' is needed from national authorities and ail s taff involved in the nutritional care and support, including hospital manag ers. (C) 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.