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NCH&C welcomes Community Dietetics service

NCH&C welcomes Community Dietetics service

We were delighted that the Community Dietetic Service joined us from NNUH in December.

Patients will continue to be referred to NCH&C community dietetics in the usual way and will continue to receive the same service in their homes and community clinics, often seeing the same staff as before at the same venue or close by. NNUH inpatient, paediatric services and patients cared for under multi-disciplinary teams will remain under the acute dietetic service provided by NNUH.

Community dietetics team

We caught up with some of the new team to find out more. Jo Gravells, Louise Sillett and Melissa Goodall (pictured above) are Specialist Learning Disabilities Dietitians…

Tell us a little bit about your roles
“We’re a team of four Specialist Learning Disability Dietitians covering the whole of Norfolk as a county-wide service. We see patients with a learning disability for a range of nutritional concerns including: nutrition support, type 1 & 2 diabetes, allergies, intolerances, coeliac disease, IBS, metabolic conditions, weight management and vitamin and mineral deficiencies. We work out in the community with our MDT colleagues and tailor our advice to create bespoke dietary advice for our patients.

As Specialist Learning Disability Dietitians we ensure our service users receive the correct dietary advice that is person-centred to their needs, taking into account their learning disability, with reasonable adjustments made to support them where necessary. Multi-disciplinary work is essential and there are five different LD Teams across Norfolk (North, South, East, West and City) that we cover/work in.”

What are you looking forward to most about joining NCH&C?
“We’re looking forward to joining an outstanding and inspiring organisation. We share NCH&C’s values and beliefs around delivering the best patient care. We see this move as a great opportunity to continue to develop our service for our patients.

As learning disability dietitians we have already had the opportunity to graduate from their invaluable Quality Championship Programme and Health Coaching course. We are excited about further opportunities for professional development we are aware NCH&C has to offer.”

How do you think this transfer of services will benefit patients?
“We believe that transferring to NCH&C will better equip us to work out in the community and spend more time with our patients, with more joined up working with our MDT colleagues. This will in turn help us to provide better patient care. Transferring to NCH&C should improve our integrated working within the learning disability service and therefore improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of care our services uses receive.”