What are the risks posed by disease (or old-age)-related malnutrition?
Addressing malnutrition in both disease and old age is crucial for improving health outcomes and quality of life. This often involves a multidisciplinary approach, including medical treatment, dietary interventions and support for underlying conditions. Regular monitoring and early intervention are key strategies to prevent and mitigate the risks associated with malnutrition. Malnutrition, whether caused by disease or old age, poses significant risks to health and wellbeing. Malnutrition can worsen chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, but also can contribute to depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Hence, we must stay committed to an EU free from all forms of malnutrition.
Effective patient care includes nutritional status screening, diagnosis and treatment for individuals suffering from disease or old age-related malnutrition. How do you think the EU can act upon these elements to provide optimum care?
The EU can take several actions to enhance the screening, diagnosis and treatment of malnutrition among patients, particularly those suffering from chronic diseases. Within its competences, the EU can develop and implement EU-wide guidelines to ensure optimum care for those suffering from diseases relation to malnutrition. A comprehensive EU approach should in any case enhance patient care, improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs associated with malnutrition.
What are the benefits of medical nutrition for Europe’s patients?
Continuous advancements in medical nutrition research can lead to better understanding and new approaches to managing diseases through diet. These advancements contribute to personalised nutrition plans that cater to individual patient needs more effectively. Overall, medical nutrition plays a crucial role in comprehensive patient care, significantly impacting health outcomes and quality of life for patients across Europe. Medical nutrition provides a range of benefits for patients across Europe, encompassing improved health outcomes, enhanced quality of life and economic advantages for healthcare systems. Speaking in more general terms, medical nutrition helps patients of all ages to address nutritional insufficiencies arising from a disease, disorder or condition, when they are unable to meet their requirements via usual diet.
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Tomislav Sokol MEP (EPP, HR)
Access to medical nutrition is highly unequal across the EU so standards depend on where the person in need lives, not only their condition and scientific/medical guidelines. How could the EU remedy and address disparities, to become a Europe of fairness, yet respecting member states’ competency in organising their health systems?
The EU can adopt a multi-faceted approach that emphasises cooperation, financial support and policy guidance. I am a strong supporter in simplifying rules governing cross-border healthcare and deepening cross-border healthcare cooperation. Currently, patients in the EU can go to another member state to seek treatment under two different EU frameworks, yet these rules are unfortunately still not used enough. The procedure is also complicated and time consuming. Patients need to pay up-front for treatment and seek reimbursement back home afterwards which can make procedures inaccessible. Crucially, we should move authorisation rules that are currently in the Cross-Border Healthcare directive into the Social Security Regulation. This would simplify reimbursement for patients and put it on a more transparent and firmer legal basis. Efforts should be made so that all costs related to treatment should be financed before it begins as much as possible to avoid the exclusion of low-income patients.
To achieve this, the Commission should consider creating a single set of authorisation and reimbursement rules for access to cross-border healthcare, including a right to a second opinion. Furthermore, within the framework of adopting a new multi-annual financial framework (MFF), it is necessary to create a special fund to cover the costs of cross-border healthcare, to not only strengthen the right of patients to obtain cross-border healthcare in general, but also to enable patients living with a rare disease to access the best possible diagnosis, care and treatment without unnecessary delay or financial burden.
Finally, we must advocate for further investments in medical infrastructure, equipment and the creation of better working conditions for healthcare professionals. This will enable healthcare professionals to stay in less developed countries and prevent brain drain. Ultimately, this is the only way to ensure equal access to medical services for citizens in the European Union.
“Medical nutrition plays a crucial role in comprehensive patient care”
Malnutrition in patients with cancer leads to poorer health outcomes. It also results in an increased burden to healthcare resources Nutritional care must be an integral part of the cancer care. You have signed the BECA report and endorsed it – how could MEPs ensure the implementation of its recommendations?
Optimal nutritional care is an essential part of cancer care as the results of cancer treatment can be hampered by malnutrition: this is what we clearly stated in the BECA report. Therefore, we have a strong mandate to insist on proper implementation of the BECA recommendations, specifically those regarding integrating nutritional care into cancer care.
As MEPs, we can work on securing EU funding for research on cancer and nutrition. Furthermore, we can also collaborate with healthcare providers, professional associations, patient advocacy groups, and the private sector to develop and promote best practices in nutritional care. By taking these steps, we can play a critical role in ensuring that the recommendations of the BECA report are effectively implemented, ultimately improving health outcomes for cancer patients and reducing the burden on healthcare resources.
Nutritional care is not a cost, it is an investment
By Catherine Hartmann, Executive Director of Medical Nutrition Industry
MNI calls on newly elected and appointed decision-makers to commit to supporting and promoting adequate, available, and accessible nutritional care for patients or elderly in need.
Malnutrition occurs when a person is not able to meet her/his nutritional needs via the normal diet due to diseases, ageing and/or side-effects of medical treatment (e.g. cancer).
Medical nutrition is a key component of the care pathway, be it for people living with a chronic disease or suffering from an acute condition – disease related malnutrition or being malnourished is not normal – yet adequate nutrition is often overlooked as care focuses on addressing the root cause.
Let's champion a holistic framework incorporating nutrition across all stages of the care pathway for improved health outcomes, as adequate nutritional interventions can extensively improve how patients with, for instance, cancer respond to oncology therapies and their quality of life. This plan should include regular and systematic malnutrition screening in hospitals or home care settings to minimise the risks and to prevent deterioration, potentially averting re-hospitalisation, implementation of clinical guidelines, ensuring access to treatment, and the promotion of further training of healthcare professionals.
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