‘Worrying trend’: people ending up in Preston and Chorley hospitals with malnutrition

However, this masks a general rising trend across England for more than a decade, with more than 10,000 people being hospitalized for malnutrition each year since the pandemic began, more than double the level seen back in 2010-11.

Dr Shakti Karunanithi, director of public health at Lancashire County Council, said of the statistics for Central Lancashire: “Any increase in hospital admissions due to lack of access to healthy food is a worrying trend and will have a detrimental impact on people’s lives.

“However, we are continually working with partners on a range of measures to build and support sustainability in our community food organizations, such as maximizing the number of people taking part in national initiatives such as the Healthy Start program and free school meals.

“(We are also) supporting trading standards and scientific advice for businesses in Lancashire, as well as developing ways to support healthier food and drink within our own organisation.

“We will continue to work with partners to tackle health inequalities and enable people to stay healthy and access healthy food in Lancashire. This will reduce the burden on hospitals and help people lead healthy lives.”

Elsewhere in Lancashire, over the same 12-month period there was an even higher rate of malnutrition admissions at Blackpool Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – up 85 per cent from 35 to 65 patients.

The situation was largely stable at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Blackburn Hospital, with malnutrition admissions up slightly from 30 to 35, while at Morecambe Bay University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Lancaster Royal Infirmary, there was a significant drop from 85 hospitalizations to 60.

Malnutrition can be caused by a number of reasons, including nutritional problems and problems absorbing nutrients or eating normally.

However, Professor Camila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said GPs were treating an increasing number of deprivation-related conditions, suggesting hospital admissions were just the “tip of the iceberg”.

“Poor nutrition increases a patient’s risk of developing a range of nutrition-related diseases: malnutrition, rickets, scurvy, and iron, vitamin and folic acid deficiencies, which are becoming increasingly common. In addition, they can also aggravate chronic diseases that the patient may already have,” she added.

Anna Taylor, chief executive of the Food Foundation, said healthy food is often the first thing families give up when struggling financially.

“We call on the Government to ensure that everyone can afford and have access to healthy food that will keep them healthy, and thereby achieve the Government’s ambitions to improve the health of our children, reduce pressure on the NHS and grow the economy,” she said . added.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “It is shocking that so many people are ending up in hospital due to malnutrition – and is further evidence of this Government’s terrible legacy.

“Our 10-year health plan will address these stark health inequalities by moving health care out of hospitals and into the community and helping people live longer, healthier lives,” adding that they are “working to tackle the root causes of poor health” around the world . government departments.

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