04.1.2025 PCS
Discover some of the best training courses to help staff ensure residents maintain a healthy and balanced diet
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Maintaining a good level of nutrition through a healthy and balanced diet is essential for ensuring the overall clinical health and wellbeing of residents in care. By prioritising good nutrition, care organisations can foster a healthier, happier environment for all residents.
Without a healthy diet, older people living in care are more susceptible to malnourishment, and as a result, are more at risk of falls, hospital admissions and longer periods of recovery. However, malnutrition is largely preventable in a care home setting – often what is required is the right knowledge, support and skill set to empower care staff to identify signs of malnutrition and how to promote a healthy diet.
So, to coincide with Nutrition Awareness Month, we are delving into the many training courses available to care staff that cover every aspect of maintaining a healthy and balanced diet.
Fluids and Nutrition
The aim of this course is to promote awareness of how residents can be encouraged to eat a healthy diet and the need for staff to monitor and record daily food and fluid intake. The content of this course focuses on what goes into a balanced diet, the need for nutrition, person-centred catering and safe food handling among others (more on that next).
Learning outcomes
- Know how to support individuals to make choices about food and drink.
- Know the principles of a balanced diet.
- Understand diet and nutrition guidelines.
- Understand how to promote diet and nutrition in health and social care settings.
Click here for more information on the Fluids and Nutrition course
Food Hygiene Level 2
The aim of this course is to provide awareness of safe working practices in the handling of food and understanding the consequences of poor standards regarding the principles of food hygiene and safety.
Content for this course includes personal hygiene, enforcement of standards, the legislation around safe handling of food, safe preparation and storage and much more.
Learning outcomes
- Understand the legislation relating to food handlers.
- Understand the different types of bacteria to cause food poisoning.
- Identify how to keep bacteria at a safe level.
- Identify safety requirements when preparing serving and storing food and drink.
- Recognise the importance of maintaining hygiene when preparing, serving and storing food/drink.
Click here for more information on the Food Hygiene Level 2 course
Dietary Requirements
This course delves into the importance of understanding that it is not just an individual’s dietary preferences that staff need to be aware of – but also dietary requirements, which may have more of an impact of not adhered to. This course will teach a person-centred approach to dietary requirements to ensure all their needs are met. Course subjects include potential medical restrictions on diet such as irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes and allergies, but also how religion relates to diet as well as lifestyle.
Learning outcomes
- Understand the links between health conditions and diet.
- Identify the different health conditions that affect diet.
- Understand how lifestyle affects diet.
- Identify how faith and culture make affect dietary choices.
Click here for more information on the Dietary Requirements course
Food Allergy and Intolerance Awareness
This course aims to help staff understand the needs of an individual who lives with an allergy and the challenges that can mean. It also aims to help staff understand how their allergy and intolerance affects them and how staff can help to support them. Content for this course includes defining food allergies and intolerances and their differences, as well as legislation surrounding allergies, other food sensitivities, signs of a reaction and much more.
Learning outcomes
- Understand what allergy and intolerance are.
- Understand the food information legislation.
- Identify the fourteen allergens.
- Identify signs and symptoms.
- Know how to support someone with an allergy or intolerance.
Click here for more information on the Food Allergy and Intolerance Awareness course
Malnutrition
The aim of this course is how to recognise someone living in a care home who may be malnourished, as well as the relevant action to maintain dietary requirements. Course content includes the causes and risk factors for malnutrition, recognising when someone might be malnourished, how to assess the associated risks and more.
Learning outcomes
- Identify the causes and consequences of malnutrition and dehydration.
- Be able to identify and assess the potential of malnutrition.
- Be aware of the ways to prevent or treat malnutrition and dehydration.
- Know when to refer to specialist support.
Click here for more information on the Malnutrition course
These are just some of the training courses available with Person Centred Software’s learning and development opportunities, which promote a culture of continued learning, improve care outcomes and give care staff the tools they need to develop their existing skills and develop new ones, always ensuring they are best placed to provide good levels of care.
Click here to find out more about our learning and development tools.
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