Dietetics

The dietetics teams in our hospitals provide specialist nutritional assessment, treatment and advice for newborns, babies, children and young people up to the age of 19.

How we help

The children’s dietitian service supports children who are in hospital as inpatients and also runs outpatient clinics for children that need specialist support with their diet and nutrition.

The team has strong links with many London hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, King’s College and the Evelina Children’s Hospital, and run joint dietetic clinics with specialists from these hospitals several times a year.

We also provide private patient services for dietetics.

Inpatient services

The children’s dietitian team support children staying in hospital with many conditions including:

gastroenterology
respiratory
metabolic
oncology
neuro-disabilities
enteral/parental feeding.

The team also make weekly nutrition rounds on the wards with the consultant gastroenterologist, consultant paediatric surgeons and pharmacist helping those who need it the most to benefit from a multidisciplinary approach.

Complex nutritional feeds can be custom made in the milk kitchen on site. The kitchen provides safe nutritional support for all inpatients using the most up to date systems and following guidelines and standards produced by the government and the Food Standards Agency.

Outpatients

Outpatient clinics are held twice weekly for children referred by their consultant or GP. Monthly specialist feeding clinics are run jointly with the speech and language therapist.

The dietitians also attend joint consultant led clinics for diabetes, cystic fibrosis, coeliac, phenylketonuria (PKU), broncho-pulmonary dysplasia and Prader-Willi Syndrome to provide nutritional care as an essential part of treatment.

The team is also responsible for the safe discharge and monitoring of patients at home on the Total Parental Nutrition programme, together with the community teams.