Memorandum 18
Submission from the Association for Nutrition
1. SUMMARY
a) The Association for Nutrition, a professional
body and voluntary regulator presently acting under the aegis
of the Nutrition Society, sets and oversees professional standards;
it promotes capacity in the nutrition workforce as means to protect
the public and raise the quality of goods and services in food
and nutrition.
b) The numbers who study nutrition at universities
is clearly increasing and we infer that nutrition and related
areas are popular at lower levels though numbers do not exist.
In common with other voluntarily regulated professions, the size
of the nutrition workforce is not documented. Therefore it is
impossible to be confident that the capacity exists to meet public
and social policy goals related to health and wellbeing, food
quality and food supply access and sustainability.
c) There is evidence of demand for a larger
supply of and easier access to basic and general skills based
flexible training in food and nutrition to support entry into
nutrition careers. There also appears to be patchy provision of
advanced training or pathways for advancing careers while advancing
practice in nutrition.
d) There is no apparent overarching mechanism
to ensure that initial and lifelong learning instills the skills
such as innovation necessary to solve public health problems that
have to date proved intractable (eg obesity).
e) We have set new standards of proficiency
in nutrition that bring together underpinning knowledge with practical
competences so that fitness to practice (ie for registration)
aligns with fitness for purpose (employability), combining flexibility
with rigour. Professional registration is more than a benchmark:
it carries the kudos of recognition which is an important stimulus
to individuals to embark upon and pay for lifelong learning. We
offer our contribution to key regional development agencies that
lead in aspects of public health, food and nutrition viz
London and the South West.
f) It is recommended that due recognition is
given to the fact that nutrition is a cross cutting theme, common
to a very wide range of sectors with the potential to contribute
to the nation's health, wellbeing, wealth and environmental sustainability.
It deserves to taken seriously by the SSCs.
g) Because there is a risk that nutrition is
overlooked in the absence of clear responsibility and accountability
for developing capacity and capability of the nutrition workforce.
i) food and nutrition should be highlighted
in the work plans of both the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils
and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
ii) a nutrition workforce development plan is
required with mechanisms to ensure underpinning knowledge relevant
to developing transformative evidence-based skills to secure the
attributes of flexibility, commitment to quality, and develop
that of innovation.
iii) More opportunities are required for training
in the practical application of nutrition skills at basic and
generic levels, in order to raise standards of care and innovation
in food products and systems, and nutrition services, systems
of care and product development and quality assurance.
2. INTRODUCTION:
ABOUT THE
ASSOCIATION FOR
NUTRITION
a) The Association for Nutrition [AfN] is in
the process of being set up as an independent organisation by
the Nutrition Society in order to take over, sustain and enhance
the promotion of nutrition as a profession, raising standards
of practice and thereby better protecting the public. AfN will
soon take over the Nutrition Society's Voluntary Register for
Nutrition with 1,000 professional registered Nutritionists who
work in Nutrition (animal and human) and Public Health Nutrition.
b) It accredits 27 HE courses leading to BSc
degrees with honours (level 6) or MScs (level 7) that meet standards
of education and competency: graduates from accredited courses
and eligible to apply for direct entry to the register as Associates.
Anyone who has evidence of competency (which in the absence of
a degree in expected to be acquired over >7 years) can apply
for registration. Such applicants may have been working in food
and nutrition related health improvement or urban renewal or community
development and seek recognition work and no doubt career advancement.
c) Registered Nutritionists affirm that they
uphold our Policy for the Nutrition Science Professions and that
they will be judged against our Code of Ethics and Standards of
Professional Conduct. We have a procedure for investigating and,
if there is a case to answer, establishing the fitness to practice
of a registrant against whom there has been a complaint or allegation;
to date there have been 10 such complaints.
d) Members of the register are required to be
committed to lifelong learning in the form of continuous professional
development (CPD). Our CPD scheme valorises specialist and generic
skills so that it dovetails with employee's Individual Performance
Review, as we have found through our work with the Food Standards
Agency which is an Investor in People, because we have the flexibility
to recognise domains in the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework,
such as management and leadership, among others common in business.
e) We offer information about where and how
to choose to study nutrition and how to enter and change careers
in nutrition, that includes vocational as well as higher education.
3. INFORMATION
ABOUT SKILLS
AND TRAINING
IN NUTRITION
a) Informal analysis of our responses to public
enquiries indicate an unmet demand for open or distance learning
courses that lead to qualifications recognised by employers and
credible to us as a professional body.
b) There are few foundation degrees (level 5)
in nutrition-related subjects (n=16) and, apparently, only one
formal award at level 4 in the public sector, excluding units
at levels 4 & 5 offered by the Open University. By contrast
there appear to be several providers in the private sector that
offer limited volumes of credits at the lower levels [2, 3]. There
are also profession led or in-house courses in nutrition or related
to the application of nutrition, as part of health care, social
care or beauty care; education support; animal welfare; food hygiene.
There is thus an array of qualifications from the Open College
Network, or a professional body; or meet National Occupational
Standards or National Workforce Competences, recognised &
overseen by QCA.
c) There appears to be a gap between such demand
led training at relatively low levels of which there appear to
be an insufficient volume at all the relevant levels (probably
3-5) to enable individual assistant professionals to accumulate
sufficient credits to show easily that they have the equivalent
of an award at level 5 [foundation degree] or 6 [degree with honours].
d) Nutrition is an increasingly popular subject
for study at university (>6,000; + applications through UCAS
in 2007; an above average increase of 14.3%). An above average
proportion of graduates stay on to study for higher degrees and
below average propositions of nutrition graduates enter graduate
occupations—clear evidence of wasted talent201. Unlike statutorily
regulated health professions, there is not formal or routine means
to quantify the contribution voluntarily regulated nutritionists
make to the workforce. Research by independent consultants indicated
that nutritionists work in many sectors and the largest proportion
is in academia. We have evidence from our analyses of >150
recent job adverts and descriptions that most new positions at
professional levels (greater than or equal to 5) occur in the
health sector. There must be many more, so far unquantified members
of the workforce who are concerned with food and nutrition in
the service sectors, food industry (production, manufacture, retail
and marketing), and of course in the leisure, care and third sectors;
and indeed in the private sector including the self employed.
e) In order to ensure that nutritionists contribute
to the health and economy of our country, and mindful of the drivers
of change including in professional regulation, we have devised
standards of proficiency in nutrition that use competences. We
are working, on our own and with others, to develop standards
in nutrition across the spectrum of the new Public Health Career
Framework (PHCF) to complement our existing standards at level
5. To do this we continue to participate in the implementation
of the PHCF, for example. Our goal is recognise the contribution
being made by and also help to upskill the wider nutrition workforce,
as health improvement and other paraprofessional workers apply
to join our professional register. Therefore we are actively working
to promote flexibility of access while retaining the rigour of
our standards for admission to our voluntary register.
f) There is equally a need to be more creative
about the contribution that can be made at advanced levels, with
discrete specific informal or formal professional development
in nutrition through lifelong learning. This would encourage innovation
without which intractable food and nutrition related problems
could not be solved (eg "unhealthy" food choices and
food intakes low levels of breast-feeding, obesity, malnutrition
in hospital patients and the elderly) and may continue to worsen.
At present there is formal support and provision for professions
allied to medicine and in medicine that includes advanced postgraduate
and/ or post-basic training to develop competences for advanced
or specialist practice (at national qualification levels 7 or
higher) in nutrition, which is apparently poorly accessible to
others in the nutrition workforce including voluntarily regulated
nutritionists. We are committed to developing comparable skills
or competency based training in public health nutrition and other
aspects of nutrition that would like to see more provision pertinent
to other sectors in addition to health. We seek partnerships with
employers to secure support and ensure that CPD contributes to
fitness for purpose, fitness for practice and hence registration;
and in due course, for re-registration (and for some professional
occupations at least, re-validation, if that is an outcome from
the reviews of non-medical and medical regulation).
g) There is no evidence of an overarching mechanism
to instil innovation at any level and thus secures rising standards
of performance necessary to tackle the burgeoning problem of obesity
and its concomitants; educate and communicate so as to support
and sustain healthier food and lifestyle choices; contributes
to sustainability (eg reducing food waste and recycling; food
miles) and contributes to social inclusion by aiding access to
education and jobs.
h) We have undertaken an informal mapping exercise
of the contents of degree courses against our forthcoming professional
standards of proficiency [which include many domains common to
the NHS KSFs and similar business and generic skills]. This indicates
a gap between current orthodox delivery that includes a limited
amount of work-based learning (including placements, attachments)
necessary for professional skills development. As we are not a
regulated profession most of our courses are not commissioned.
We wish to work strategically with learning and skills partnerships,
regional development agencies and employers to ensue that what
we call fitness for practice (and hence becoming a registered
professional in nutrition) is also fit for purpose (work).
i) National professional bodies as small as
we are have difficulty in finding avenues and keeping those that
we have patent, so that we can articulate our work with that of
the regional development agencies. We are committed to contributing
to the work of RDAs that lead on areas of common interest such
as the London region (with London Food; and its focus upon Public
Health) and the South West Region (with its Food and Drinks Skills
Network). Our role would include providing professional recognition
that would in turn stimulate and sustain more individuals to be
motivated to embark on and pay for more lifelong learning. This
kind of stimulus is required in order to meet objectives set out
by Lord Leitch (2006) and the Skills for Health Sector skills
agreement.
4. PROPOSED
RECOMMENDATIONS TO
BE INCLUDED
IN THE
COMMITTEE'S
REPORT
a) Nutrition is a cross cutting theme common
to a very wide range of sectors and has the potential to contribute
to the nation's health wellbeing wealth and environmental sustainability.
It deserves to taken seriously by the SSCs: there is a risk that
it is overlooked in the absence of clear responsibility and accountability
for developing the capacity and capability of the nutrition workforce.
It is recommended that food and nutrition should be highlighted
in the work plans of both the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils
and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
b) a nutrition workforce development plan is
required with mechanisms to ensure underpinning knowledge relevant
to developing transformative evidence-based skills to secure the
attributes of flexibility, commitment to quality, and develop
that of innovation.
c) More opportunities are required for training
in the practical application of nutrition skills at basic and
generic levels, in order to raise standards of care and innovation
in food products and systems, and nutrition services, systems
of care and product development and quality assurance.
April 2008
Nutrition Society (2006) Nutrition Capacity in the
United Kingdom: Mapping the "primary" nutrition workforce.
| 
