Quality standard

This quality standard covers care for adults (aged 18 and over) who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition in hospital or in the community. It includes identifying people at risk of malnutrition and providing nutrition support, including dietary changes and artificial nutrition support given through feeding tubes (enteral nutrition) or directly into a vein (parenteral nutrition). It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

How to use NICE quality standards and how we develop them

Quality standards help you improve the quality of care you provide or commission. They apply in England and Wales (see the UK government website and Welsh government website). Decisions on how they apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland are made by ministers in the Scottish government and Northern Ireland Executive.

Find out how to use quality standards and how we develop them. We check our quality standards every August to make sure they are up to date.