"As the professional association for regulated dietitians, we abhor all forms of violence and conflict as a means of achieving political ends and call for a lasting meaningful, peaceful solution to the conflict in Gaza.

We echo the call by the World Health Organization that healthcare facilities, workers and patients should be off limits and express our solidarity with our health professional colleagues who are operating under the most difficult circumstances imaginable in Gaza.  All people deserve access to life saving and life preserving healthcare. Our colleagues who provide this should be safe and free from threats or violence as they fulfil their commitment to care for their fellow human beings. Those who target them or their workplaces breach international humanitarian law and must be held accountable and brought to justice.

Since March 2 Israel has blocked the entry of medical, fuel, and food supplies into Gaza. As dietitians we are acutely aware of the lifelong consequences  of malnutrition and denial of medicines to the children of Gaza and their families and utterly condemn the use of starvation as a means to achieve political objectives. "

INDI May 2025

New resources to educate patients & families on the nutritional guidelines for Sarcopenia and Malnutrition management

These videos have been developed by 3 NCPOP Dietitians who are members of the Older Persons Special Interest Group of the Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute, with support from HSE SPARK. The first two videos launched to date are: 

Sarcopenia and Nutrition 

Malnutrition and the Older Person 

These free to access videos are designed to support healthcare workers in providing evidence based information to the older person and their families.  The purpose is to facilitate patient understanding of the important role of nutrition in managing these two conditions.  It is envisioned that these videos may be shared as part of a one to one consultation, a group session or shared with a family member.  They could also be shown on screen in a waiting area to raise awareness of Sarcopenia and Malnutrition in the older person.

Videos are currently available via the YouTube channel :    @Nutritionforageingwell

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHxq5oF-OJ3sNqExG1eyDYw

Physical Assessment of Adults in Clinical Practice –

A Training Programme for Dietetic Departments,

 Available from 27^th January, 2025

The INDI Physical Assessment of Adults in Clinical Practice (PAACP) blended learning programme was developed by dietitian experts* under the direction of the  Nutrition Physical Assessment Steering Group, as it was recognised that there was a gap, in terms of knowledge, skills and confidence of dietitians with the physical assessment component of nutrition assessment. 

Improving physical assessment skills of dietitians, enables more comprehensive nutrition assessment and identification of malnutrition and its severity in individuals. This is crucial, as it is estimated that 1 in 3 adults admitted to Irish hospitals are at risk of malnutrition, and 145,000 people live with, or are at risk of malnutrition (majority in the community) in Ireland^1.

Our progress so far:

Since December 2023, 112 dietitians from across all clinical settings have participated in PAACP training. In the first quarter of 2025, a further two programmes (which are full to capacity) will be rolled out to 40 more dietitians. A third programme will be delivered in September 2025, and it is anticipated that places will be filled by those dietitians currently on our waiting list.

Increasing access to PAACP training via dietetic teams/departments: 

With the ongoing high demand for this training, and the need to embed physical assessment skills across the profession for the benefit of adult patients/service users, a training package for dietetic teams and departments has been developed separately. This approach will increase capacity and facilitate dietitians’ access to PAACP training in a more timely manner. This training package will be launched and available from January 27^th 2025,and will be available going forward.

The key points to consider for a department or team PAACP training package are as follows:

The workshop components will need to be co-ordinated, conducted and delivered within your dietetic department/team by an eligible dietitian(s) who acts as facilitator(s). 

Your chosen facilitator(s) must be:

Working in practice for more than 3 years.

Have had prior training in physical assessment skills

Be incorporating these skills into their practice for more than 6 months.

Be confident that they have necessary skills and expertise to deliver this training 

The training uses a peer model approach, so training will be carried out in pairs. There can be up to 5 pairs of dietitians per facilitator within your department/team.

All materials, resources and the e-module as well as certificate of completion, will be provided and available to dietitians from your department/team through access to the INDI’s e-learning centre. 

Guidance documents (facilitator handbook) and workshop slides will be provided by the INDI for the support of the delivery of the programme. 

In order to allow flexibility, a department/team will have access to the training package on INDI’s E-learning site for a 12-month period - during which training can be scheduled and delivered at times that suit the department/team, in 14 week blocks to pairs.

The cost of this option will be €110 for each INDI member and €180 for each non-INDI member within your department

If you would like further details, e.g. a breakdown of the learning objectives and training components, or if you wish to proceed with this training for your department or team, please contact info@indi.ie and copy cpd@indi.ie to register your interest. We will revert to you to ensure eligibility and provide all details.

*Dietitian Expert Content Developers

Nicola Dervan, Specialist Lecturer/Practice Tutor, UCD

Jenny Caffrey, Clinical Specialist in Critical Care, SVUH

Fatma Omar, Acting Clinical Specialist Dietitian, Heart/Lung Transplant & CTS, MMUH. 

With review by, and acknowledgement to: Barbara Gillman, Dietitian Operations Manager, MMUH, Professor Clare Corish, Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, UCD and Mary McKiernan, Dietitian Manager, MMUH

References

Rice N & Norman C 2012. JPHN 15(10):1966-1972; Russell CA & Elia M 2012. BAPEN 2012

Download the INDI National Nutrition Survey 1990

We are delighted to announce that the 10th Annual INDI Fresenius Kabi Research Symposium will take place in TUD on Wednesday May 14th 2025 and the call for Abstracts is now open!

Nominations are also open for the prestigious Research Dietitian of the Year and the Research & Quality Improvement in Dietetic Practice Award awards.

Please submit your abstracts and nominations at the link below. We are looking forward to a great event and can't wait to see you there.

Research_Dietitian_of_the_year_2025_Nomination_Form.docx

RQI_in_Dietetic_Practice_Award_2025_Nomination_Form.docx

Upload Your Abstracts Here

Save the Date: Friday September 20th 2024

We are holding another meeting for all Dietitian managers (and their practice educators) on Friday  September 20^th to discuss practice placement updates and to share information on placement ideas being tried and tested. There will be an opportunity for Dietitians to work within their CHO groupings to discuss placement opportunities and to make a plan for how we can support each other into the future.

The venue is the Richmond Hospital,Dublin 1. Email info@indi.ie to book your place.

It is hard to believe that it is almost a year since we published the Practice Placement Position paper.  As you know this document was developed by a group of managers, placement practice educators and the INDI in response to the current vacancy crisis and the pressures that we are all facing in the workplace. More Dietitians need to be graduating in Ireland each year to fill vacancies across the country and to build a sustainable workforce. This means that we must train more students. Our goal is to support dietitians so they feel that they can provide practice placements  for  students from any HEI. We want to optimise capacity so we can all reap the benefits of having diverse, confident and competent new graduates who can work across all settings.

As you may remember we ran a workshop in the Aisling hotel in February 2023 “Practice Placement – the way forward” for dietitian Managers/ in charge.  This allowed managers to come together to discuss how we can work together to increase student training capacity across the country. This was followed up by a webinar in April, for all dietitians. The feedback from both events was very positive and great ideas have been generated and shared as result.

Without doubt, there is much we can do to increase practice placement capacity. This has been demonstrated by those who shared with us the different approaches they have taken to sustain, and in comes cases increase, practice placement capacity despite current day challenges, such as staff shortages.  

We know that since last year’s meeting, many of you have been putting some of these ideas and approaches into practice. We have tried to capture this information in 4 sub-groups of the T&F group set up at the start of this year. Initially each group was HEI aligned and led by 1-2 Task group members. These subgroups gave dietitians from all settings and opportunity to discuss ways of working together to increase potential placement opportunities. As two of these subgroups were very large, more recently we have started to look at this potential placement capacity across CHO areas. Many of you will have contributed to this work to date. If not, we welcome your input as we continue to expand this exercise. This is important work to undertake as there no data on current practice placement in Ireland.

There were a number of positive outcomes from the work that we have done so far. 

Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFERIS) engagement

We reached out to directly to DFERIS to discuss the need to graduate more Dietitians in Ireland and to advocate for additional HEI resourcing for same. This engagement led to the commencement of discussions between the HEi representatives and DFERIS. In turn this led to a commitment from the undergraduate programme to offer 5 additional places in September 2023.. 

HSE National HSCP office engagement

We have been working with the HSE National HSCP Office to advocate for more supports, to explore different routes into  dietetics and to quantify the number of potential  placements available. 

It is the goal of the HSCP office to develop a national database on all practice placements for all HSCPs across the country. A HSCP Practice Placement Database Working group has been established for this purpose. Sinead Feehan is the T&F group representative on this group, which has opportunity to brief the HSCPO on the work happening across Dietetics and the approach taken to date.  As result, the HSCPO is now conducting a services of interviews with HSCP managers across the country to gain a better understanding of the barriers and enablers to increasing practice placements in all professions.

HEI Engagement 

We have met with the programme Directors from the 4 HEIs delivering Dietetic Programmes i.e. TCD & TUD, UCD, UCC and UL. The have been briefed on the approach being taken by this T&F to increase practice placement capacity and have invited representatives to join our sub groups. We have also advocated strongly on your behalf for common assessment forms to be developed and we understand that this work is in progress.

Advocacy

The T&F group continues to advocate for the supports that Dietitians require in order to provide a sustainable practice placement programme for students across the country, as outlined in our position paper launched last year. 

HSE funded Regional coordinator posts to ensure seamless integration of placements across all locations.

HSE funded Practice placement tutor posts to overcome current challenges and increasing numbers

Formal arrangements between HEIs, placement sites and the HSE e.g. MOUs

Review of the current requirement for 1000 hours of clinical placement and the structure and timing of placements

Supports for accommodation for the greater Dublin area

Reinstatement of training allowance

Coordinated partnership approach between the HEIs, the regulator, the HSE and the profession.

Common assessment processes and documentation across all HEIs

Administrative supports in departments, to ensure that clinical training resources are optimised

Adequate office accommodation and technology within training sites

While we continue to work together to implement these recommendations, we need input from all stakeholders, from the HEIs the HSE, the government departments and most importantly from dietitians and student dietitians.  Our position is that we should be coming together to overcome barriers to PPE and that all dietitians should be training students.

PLEASE JOIN US ON SEPTEMBER 20th.