Chair's update

Thanks once again to Kate Hall, PENG Communications Officer, for all her time and effort in creating and gently coercing authors to contribute to this edition’s content. And thanks to all those who have contributed.

We are now two thirds through 2014. PENG membership numbers stand at a healthy 396. Whilst the total membership speaks for itself in the popularity of this specialist group, don’t forget that amongst the benefits is access to hundreds of colleagues with whom you can consult and engage with.

Our next major event shortly to take place is the BAPEN Conference. The PENG Committee has been actively involved in developing the content of the BAPEN Conference and will be present at the event so do make yourself known to us at the PENG stand in the breaks. We hope that the final programme will help fulfill your professional development needs. Registration has been active; hence, there will be plenty of colleagues there to catch up with on both a professional and more informal basis.

Outside of the main BAPEN conference symposia, many of the PENG Committee members and PENG Clinical Leads will be participating in key multi-professional BAPEN meetings, hopefully speaking on behalf of the profession to ensure that dietitians’ views are represented and continue to influence the outputs and work plans of BAPEN.

Registration for the next PENG Clinical Update Course is now open and the feedback from last year’s attendees is included in this edition of e-PENlines, capturing the huge value gained by those participating in this Master’s level course.

As Chair of PENG, I continue to retain a position on BAPEN Council, this link along with other positions on BAPEN Committees that other PENG Committee members hold, helps to ensure that PENG as a core group of BAPEN remains involved with BAPEN, helping to deliver quality initiatives that have the capacity to influence the political agenda and help secure or retain services in nutrition support. Several PENG members act on the BAPEN Quality Group which is currently leading on a piece of work, in conjunction with the Nutrition and Hydration Action Alliance, to develop and launch a nutrition and hydration portal. This portal will expand in time to host up-to-date credible information on the management and prevention of malnutrition. Information will be available to a host of professionals, carers, patients, commissioners, caterers and those in social care. Work also continues on the BAPEN Decision Trees, a range of which will be launched shortly.

In conjunction with PINNT and the NNNG, PENG are also working on a range of resources. The aim of these is to provide up-to-date materials to help you in practice, including resources to be accessed by patients and carers to help decision making in tube feeding and parenteral nutrition. These should be available free to members by year end.

I have just returned from BDA Live where in conjunction with Dr Martin McShane, Director of Long Term Conditions, NHS England, I spoke about the role of the dietitian in the management of long-term conditions, opportunities for the profession in the new healthcare landscape and posed the question to the audience to ask why those commissioning our services should ‘Trust’ us and how we need to ‘Prove our Worth’ not just ‘Know our Worth’.

Work is also ongoing liaising with PH England and I am hoping to follow-up an initial contact with the new Chief Exec of the Faculty of Public Health to discuss the new structure within the Faculty and how dietitians can work together with the Faculty to deliver modern health and social care.

This edition is also brimming with recent awards to dietitians amongst both our membership and Committee. I would like to personally congratulate the achievements which reflect the professionalism evident in our membership……do read more in the update section. I hope you will feel inspired by their achievements and feel proud to be a dietitian.

I hope you enjoy the content of this latest ePENlines. We will continue to keep you informed of relevant items via email alerts but do also check out the PENG website and register for RSS feeds to be aware of news items.

In the next edition of ePENlines we will be summarising our business plan for PENG and progress to date on objectives set in February this year. I remain impressed by the industrious contributions from all the Committee members and Clinical Leads and would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their immense amount of support and drive.

As always, I would welcome hearing from you about matters you feel relevant to our membership. Please do email me: anne@hph.ltd.uk.

Best wishes

Anne Holdoway

Chair – PENG