Nutrition and Dietetics - Salford Royal, Salford Community

Ageing & Complex Medicine or often known as care of the elderly is a designated team aiming to reduce malnutrition in hospital and community by identifying the root causes for unintentional nutrition and hydration deficits.

We aim to implement practical dietetic care interventions to suit the individuals’ circumstance and support best interest decisions.

Over the years this team has grown and extended its clinical cover to acute medical admissions; also leading on the emergency assessment unit, haematology, Medical High Care Unit and Respiratory ward amongst a total of 13 wards.

The community dietetic department provides nutritional management for the residents of Salford, in a range of settings including care homes, patients’ homes, gateway clinics and on the telephone.

Our Dietitians provide personalised evidenced based dietary advice for patients with a range of clinical areas including Malnutrition, Gastroenterology, Head and Neck and Upper gastro-intestinal cancer, Home enteral tube feeding and the intermediate care unit at Salford Royal Hospital.

The dietetic team works closely with the acute dietetic team to ensure safe and efficient care is provided from hospital to home. The team works in liaison with other health care professionals including clinical specialist nurses, district nurses, speech and language therapists, consultants and GP’s.

Critical Care Dietitians ensure that patients receive the right amount of nutrition, at the right time and in the right way to support recovery.

Dietitians estimate nutritional needs and develop individualised nutritional care plans. Patients who are unconscious and connected to a ventilator receive liquid nutrition into their gut (mostly by a tube from their nose to their stomach) or their blood supply (parenteral nutrition, directly into a drip) depending on their clinical diagnosis.

Patients who are recovering and conscious may be able to eat and drink, however, they commonly experience problems with reduced appetite, taste changes or swallowing difficulties. They may require supplementary tube feeding alongside oral diet to ensure adequate nutrition. Patients often feel they don’t need much to eat as they are inactive, however research shows they actually need a lot of nutrition to provide energy for recovery and rebuilding their strength.

Diabetes Specialist Dietitians work within the Diabetes Multidisciplinary team working across the whole of the Salford area to support patients with diabetes on how to manage their diet to help control their diabetes.

Specialist education, in addition to general workshops are run in centres across Salford.  The team also provide a specialist in-patient service.

The Gastroenterology Dietitians work closely with medical and surgical teams to provide effective nutrition support and diet therapy for people who have digestive conditions or are having surgery to their digestive tract.  

Gastroenterology Dietitians provide expert evidence-based advice to enable patients to manage their condition.  We are passionate about providing quality nutritional care for those living with a wide range of digestive conditions. 

We also support those who have recently been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus or stomach and even pre-diagnosis with clinics being set up across Greater Manchester along with local specialist nurse teams to ensure good nutrition and hydration.

If you are currently under a Gastroenterology Dietitian at Salford Royal, please contact us via email on gastrodietitians@nca.nhs.uk for any questions between appointments.

Additionally, you may have been placed onto Patient Initiated Follow up (PIFU), by your dietitian. If you are noticing signs and symptoms such as unintentional weight loss, a poor appetite or a flare of your IBD, please email as above for advice and guidance.

The Metabolic team specialise in the dietary treatment of inherited (genetic) disorders of metabolic processes. We are fully integrated within multidisciplinary team, and work with people with rare or ultra-rare conditions for whom diet can be the only treatment. 

Diseases are often picked up through newborn screening or occur in early life and are life threatening or life limiting.  This role covers a wide range of dietary manipulations, like reduced protein, fats or carbohydrates, or the removal of specific nutrients from the diet (like galactose or choline) for a wide range of patient groups often complex and including multiple family members or those with a learning disability. 

As this is an emerging medical field, our patients tend to be younger and stay under the team for life, which gives you chance to build good therapist / client relationships.

It’s a fascinating area to work in, with a limited evidence base, often relying upon expert opinions and discussions with specialists from other centres both in the UK and beyond.

The Intestinal Failure Dietitians are an integral part of the multi-disciplinary team working on the Intestinal Failure Unit. This is one of only two designated centers for the treatment of complex intestinal failure (IF) patients in the United Kingdom (UK).   

Intestine failure exists when there is insufficient functioning bowel to enable adequate nutrient and/or fluid absorption; therefore, parenteral nutrition (intravenous feeding) may be required.  

Our Dietitians work closely with all IF patients in both the inpatient and outpatient setting to ensure that their nutritional and fluid needs are being met. We carry out individualised nutritional assessments alongside anthropometric measurements and body composition analysis to develop patient-centred treatment plans.  We provide expert, evidence-based advice and education on suitable oral diet, enteral tube, or parenteral feeds. 

Our team also regularly present at conferences and provide training both nationally and internationally. Furthermore, we are heavily involved in research related to nutrition and IF.

The Neurosciences Dietetic team provides evidence-based nutritional care to patients throughout their journey towards recovery. We provide this through high dependency, acute neurosurgery and the spinal injury unit, acute stroke, acute neurology and into the specialist rehabilitation setting. 

The Neurosciences Dietitian is an integral member of the multidisciplinary team, uniquely qualified to assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems associated with neurological, neurosurgical or traumatic injury. Our patients often require multiple strategies to maintain their nutritional status and optimise outcomes, including enteral tube feeding with regular review allowing re-assessment of nutritional needs as the clinical situation changes. A focus is put on providing holistic care, involving patients and their relatives in all aspects of treatment planning to optimise patient outcomes through individualised nutritional care plans. 

We work as part of the wider Nutrition Support Team which also includes Specialist Nutrition Nurses, Gastroenterologists, and a Pharmacist.

We see patients requiring intravenous (parenteral) nutrition, which can be indicated in patients whose digestive system is inaccessible, or non-functioning following surgery, disease or obstruction and therefore preventing it being utilised as a route for nutrition.

The Dietitian may also contribute to the nutrition support teams multi-disciplinary meetings and be involved in decision making for complex nutrition support patients.

The role of the renal dietitian is diverse and rewarding. We are involved in the nutritional care of people with chronic kidney disease (stage 4 and 5) in the Western Sector of Greater Manchester (Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan and Bolton). We provide a service to people who are not yet requiring dialysis, those with nephrotic syndrome, all individuals requiring haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, those presenting with acute kidney injuries and some people with kidney transplants.

We work alongside the renal doctors and nurses to support people with kidney disease to protect their remaining kidney function, manage any symptoms and reduce their risk of developing other complications such as cardiovascular disease. Dietary advice is often complex and may change depending on the stage of kidney disease, blood test results, medical treatment plan, nutritional status and fluid needs.

Our team of specialists is dedicated to helping adults living with obesity achieve sustainable weight loss and improve their overall health and well-being.

We offer support through 1:1 face-to-face, telephone, and virtual group education sessions.

Our weight management dietitians (working within weight management and bariatric MDT) support patients with complex needs in achieving their weight loss goals through strategies such as dietary education, prescriptive weight loss medications and the option for bariatric surgery if they meet the eligibility criteria.

We also provide dietetic education and advice before and after bariatric surgery to support patients through their surgical weight loss journey.