ABSTRACT
Nutrition is fundamental to health, yet Nightingale’s (1859/1980) claim that thousands starve in hospitals has been echoed in many recent reports, including Essence of Care (DOH, 2001a). Feeding within 24-48 hours of disease/ surgery significantly improves outcome (McClave et al., 2002a). Nutrition has improved, possibly to the extent of overfeeding some patients. However, prescribed feeds are often not fully completed (McClave et al., 1999; De Beaux et al., 2001) – incomplete administration of prescribed antibiotics would be considered unacceptable.
