29. Sensible prescribing of nutritional products with Alison Smith

Welcome to the latest episode of Talking Meds and the PrescQIPP podcast, engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas. Today, your host Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP, talks to Alison Smith about the role of prescribing support dietitians and the sensible prescribing of nutritional products.

Alison has been qualified as a Registered Dietitian for more than 25 years, and since 2013 has worked as a Prescribing Support Dietitian within Clinical Commissioning Groups and latterly an Integrated Care Board. Her role focusses on appropriate prescribing of nutrition products, with a particular remit for prevention, identification and appropriate management of malnutrition using a food-based approach. 

Alison is chair of both the Department of Health and Social Care Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances (ACBS) and the PrescQIPP Nutrition Virtual Professional Group. Alison is also a committee member of both the Older People Specialist Group and the Optimising Nutrition Prescribing Specialist Group of the British Dietetic Association (BDA).

In 2021 Alison was made a Fellow of the BDA for her services to the profession and in 2024 was awarded the inaugural Chief Allied Health Professions Officer (CAHPO) Gold Award for Excellence.

In this episode of Talking Meds, Jonathan and Alison talk about the positive impact of having a registered dietitian within a medicines team and some of the particular challenges associated with prescribing of nutritional products.

PrescQIPP and other resources:

Nutrition webkit

Bulletin 261: Oral Nutritional Supplements

Nutrition VPG

Creating a fortified diet recipe book for care home caterers - joint publication with PrescQIPP, BDA and NACC

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