The role of the nutritional support dietitian in Europe

The European Community now supports the potential for professionals to practice in any of the member states subject to recognized local standards of education and practice being achieved. However, there is no agreed role for the nutritional support dietitian. This leads to an inconsistent and, sometimes, fragmented approach to the nutritional management of patients throughout Europe. There is a need to develop a common dietetic approach to nutritional support in order to raise awareness and rationalize standards. This will help to optimize care to individual patients by fostering good practice, developing effective communication and encouraging research.

The role of the clinical dietitian varies widely throughout Europe - it tends to be more highly developed in some countries than in others, which is a cause for concern among dietitians in ESPEN. This appears to be caused by several factors including education, clinical awareness of the benefits of dietetic support and access to adequate financial resources. The intention of this paper is to focus on the key aspects of the role of the dietitian working in nutritional support. The educational requirements of such a dietitian are outlined and these could be used as a preliminary guide for institutions responsible for delivering undergraduate dietetic programmes. The overall intention is to identify minimum educational standards for practice in this field throughout Europe. However, these should be viewed as a baseline from which to proceed. They should also be perceived as a quality standard for facilitating professional development, sharing clinical practice and enhancing patient outcomes. This paper does not address issues of resource allocation.

a) There should be agreement about the key functions of the dietitian working in nutritional support; b) There should be a common standard at first degree level for all dietitians; c) There should be an identified programme of post-graduate study (both clinical and academic) leading to specialization in nutritional support; d) There should be an innovative approach to providing clinical support for emerging specialists; e) ESPEN should investigate the potential for developing an accredited and integrated European dietetic standard in nutritional support.