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 and parenteral nutrition in hospital in-patients, undertaken to provide information for the development of guidelines by the Hospitals Nutritional Advisory Group and a baseline for future monitoring. This represents the first steps in the audit cycle. The results highlighted the following problems. 1 Total parenteral nutrition is often continued after bowel sounds have returned. 2 Enteral tube feeding is often instituted for only a very short period of time and may be of little nutritional 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 notes, however, the aims of feeding and the reason for commencing feeding were never documented. Nutritional aims were defined in the case notes by dietitians for all tube-fed and 18 of the 20 patients who were parenterally fed.