Healthcare professionals, which include dietitians, work with members of the public on a one-to-one basis and as part of wider multidisciplinary teams.
Health services in the UK are undergoing significant change and realignment and dietitians are moving with the times and demands during these unsettling, for some, changes. The way health services are delivered, potentially by multiple providers and structures, is changing, commissioning and securing of health and social care is focussed on the aquisition of quality outcomes which need to be explicitly demonstrated by those providing these services. Dietitians are acutely aware of this necessity and align their work to meet these needs and demonstrable outcomes. Service users have, and rightly will, continue to have a significant part to play in the way in which services are planned, developed and delivered. Dietitians work on a patient-first basis.
With these a priority, dietitians are uniquely placed to:
- Put patients and the public first with ‘no decision about me, without me’;
- Improve healthcare outcomes, through services, that are evidence-based;
- Place greater emphasis on autonomy, accountability and democratic legitimacy with empowerment of professionals & providers;
- Cut bureaucracy and improve efficiency;
- Enable, strengthen and encourage innovation.
The BDA fully endorses this statement on a UK-wide basis:
“The NHS is there to improve our health and well-being, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives. It works at the limit of science, bringing the highest levels of human knowledge and skill to save lives and improve health. It touches our lives at times of basic human need, when care and compassion are what matter most”.1
Reference:
1 The NHS Constitution for England, Department of Health March 2012