Department Of Health
The consultation proposed a change to adultoral nutritional supplement volume size, and most people agreed it would improve prescribing and reduce errors.
However,the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances (ACBS)is not recommending action on volume size at this time because responses raised several other important concerns that need to be explored first.
Patient safety incidents were reported andACBSis proposing an audit to determine the scale and nature of incidents. NHS England and the Optimising Nutrition Prescribing Specialist Group of the British Dietetic Association have agreed to undertake this work and report the outcomes.
Following this,ACBSand others will commence dialogue with industry about any problems identified and reported with packaging, labelling and product names.ACBSwill then decide whether to advise on changes.
Separately,ACBSwill work with stakeholders to improve communication of prescribing practice. Work by theNHS Business Services Authorityto categorise nutritional borderline substances has laid the foundation to replicate this in theBritish National Formularyand ensure consistency across the system.