Patient malnutrition 'unacceptable'

The Department of Health has said it is "unacceptable" for patients to go hungry or be malnourished in hospitals, and has increased the number of unannounced inspections by the care watchdog to tackle the issue.

The announcement was made after it was reported that 1,165 people have starved to death in NHS hospitals over the last four years.

The Sunday Express said that figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that for every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate.

In 2011, 43 patients starved to death and 291 died in a state of severe malnutrition, the newspaper said, while the number of patients discharged from hospital suffering from malnutrition doubled to 5,558.

Dianne Jeffrey, chairwoman of Malnutrition Task Force, condemned the statistics. She told the Sunday Express: "Too many are paying the price with their lives while being deprived of the basic right to good nutrition, hydration and support."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Every NHS patient should expect to be looked after properly in hospital. It is completely unacceptable if patients go hungry or are malnourished.

"To help make sure patients get the right care - and to root out bad practice - the Care Quality Commission has increased the number of unannounced inspections that it undertakes, and soon it will publish its findings from a series of inspections looking specifically at dignity and nutrition.

"We are also investing £100 million on IT so nurses can spend more time with patients, not paperwork. That means nursing rounds where senior nurses will have more time to check that patients are comfortable, are helped to eat and drink, and are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."