Nutrition training in primary care.

Sir, Primary care dieticians in Dorset provide practice-based nutrition training for all members of the primary health care team (PHCT). This has been shown to be successful in significantly improving their knowledge of nutrition.1 Dietary advice is now an integral part of patient consultations in primary care. However, members of the PCHT may lack the knowledge and skills necessary to deliver accurate and consistent advice.2 In most cases, additional training is required,3 and the primary care dietician is ideally placed to provide this. In Dorset, eight one-hour training sessions are provided to the PCHT on a range of nutrition topics. These include dietary counselling skills, healthy eating, and diabetes, as well as coronary heart disease. Baseline nutrition knowledge and a subjective measure of confidence is assessed by questionnaire before and after training. To date, 28 out of 30 practices that have completed training have demonstrated a significant increase in knowledge. The majority also felt more confident when giving dietary advice, which is vital in order that patients do not doubt the staff’s competence. The training is offered to all staff, but mainly practice nurses (PNs) attend. Even though it is usually the PN who offers dietary advice to patients, we would like to encourage GPs to attend nutrition training. Owing to GPs’ credibility as a source of information, reinforcement of the PN’s dietary advice could help to make certain that it is followed. Full PCHT nutrition training would also help to ensure that all the dietary advice patients receive is consistent and up to date. Anyone interested in finding out more about this nutrition training is welcome to contact the primary care dieticians in Dorset.