OPEN Toolkit
Development of the Older People's Essential Nutrition (OPEN) toolkit is part of the work of the Wessex AHSN Nutrition in Older People Programme, with support from a range of stakeholders in the health, social care and voluntary sectors.
The Wessex AHSN has put together a toolkit as part of the project, with the aim of sharing the resources developed during the project with other organisations that may be planning similar training or initiatives. The overall aim of this innovative project is to develop and evaluate an approach for the provision of good nutritional care for older people; by providing undernutrition awareness training and follow up support to a range of sectors to provide a collaborative and joined-up approach to tackling undernutrition in older people.
By using this toolkit in your area, you will be working towards best practice in undernutrition screening and providing good nutritional care across all settings, as outlined in the key national guidance (NICE) and standards which have been published since 2008 to present. A multi-disciplinary approach has supported the development of the toolkit, and the toolkit has been endorsed by the British Dietetic Association (BDA).
The toolkit itself has been split into four main sections:
1) Training packages for health, social care and voluntary sectors with a community setting focus - a separate guidance document has been produced with information about how to use these. Please note that each training toolkit is available from the 'resources' section, and will download as a .zip file for your convenience. Use WinZip (often installed as standard on PCs) or Windows Explorer to open, extract and save the files. Should you encounter any problems, please click the Contact Us button below.
2) Awareness materials - we have produced three undernutrition leaflets (a general 'OPEN' undernutrition leaflet, a leaflet specifically for people with dementia and a leaflet specifically for people with COPD) and a set of three posters to raise awareness about undernutrition and how it can be treated. These resources are suitable for the general public or for anyone working with older people to give out to people at risk of undernutrition. The posters and three leaflets can be downloaded as PDFs from our 'resources' section or by accessing Slideshare using the following links (you will need a Slideshare of LinkedIn account if you wish to download them as PDFs):
OPEN Undernutrition Awareness Leaflet
Eating & Drinking Well: Supporting people with dementia Leaflet
Eating well: Guidance for people living with COPD
Eating Well Feeling Good Poster
Spotting Signs of Weight Loss Poster
We have also been working with our partners across Wessex to streamline the resources used in the community (e.g. those given out by community nurses and staff in general practice). In April 2018, we published a 2-page (or double-sided) easy print A4 version of our OPEN undernutrition leaflet. A PDF version can be downloaded from the 'resources' section.
3) Generic undernutrition care pathways, which can be adapted for your locality; localisation of the care pathways is required to ensure local flavour and adoption. These generic pathways can be downloaded from our 'resources' section or by accessing Slideshare using the following link (you will need a Slideshare of LinkedIn account if you wish to download a PDF version): Generic Undernutrition Care Pathways by Wessex AHSN
4) Evaluation framework (for information on the evaluation framework, please click here). The evaluation framework can be downloaded from our 'resources' section or by accessing Slideshare using the following link (you will need a Slideshare of LinkedIn account if you wish to download if a PDF version): Evaluation Toolkit by Wessex AHSN
OPEN Training Videos: Undernutrition awareness
OPEN Training Videos: Screening using 'MUST'
Hydration Toolkit
The hydration toolkit has been designed for staff in care homes and carers in the community. It provides a practical guide to help them assist older people in their care to achieve optimum hydration. The toolkit has been developed through collaboration between Kent Surrey and Sussex AHSN, Wessex AHSN and North East Hampshire and Farnham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). We hope the toolkit will inspire all those who read it to promote the importance of good hydration among older people and have the satisfaction of helping the individuals they care for achieve this aim.The Hydration Toolkit itself can be downloaded by accessing Slideshare, using the following link: Hydration Toolkit by Wessex AHSN
Some of the information included in the hydration toolkit is based on the resources developed for the 'HYDRATE in care homes' project commissioned by North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG in 2014. An evaluation of this project was published by Kent Surrey and Sussex AHSN in April 2017; this evaluation report can be downloaded from the 'resources' section to the right.
Useful Resources from other Organisations
Featured video
Resources
Social Care Training Toolkit (.zip)
Community Nursing Training Toolkit (.zip)
Pharmacy Training Toolkit (.zip)
Practice Nurse Training Toolkit (.zip)
Care Home Training Toolkit (.zip)
Voluntary Sector Training Toolkit (.zip)
OPEN Undernutrition Awareness LEAFLET
Eating Well: Guidance for people living with COPD LEAFLET
Eating and Drinking Well: Supporting people with dementia LEAFLET
Eating Well Feeling Good POSTER
Spotting signs of weight loss POSTER
Generic Undernutrition Care Pathways
2-sided OPEN Leaflet for easy printing
Consolidation quiz for carers and volunteers
4 Steps to a Conversation about Malnutrition
HYDRATE in Care Homes Evaluation Report April 2017
Consolidation quiz for trained health and social care professionals, and care home staff