Dietitian

Roles dietitians might undertake in Primary Care (noting this list is not exhaustive):

• Support patients with weight management
• Manage patients with suspected or diagnosed Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Support diabetic and pre-diabetic (Non-diabetic hyperglycaemia) patients and other long-term conditions (e.g. CVD, stroke)
• Specialist nutrition and dietary advice to patients, their carers and healthcare professionals
• Work as part of an MDT, which could include supporting care homes
• Input into patients with frailty or multi-morbidities
• Infant feeding
• Make recommendations to PCN staff regarding changes to medications for the nutritional management of patients based on the interpretation of biochemical, physiological, and dietary requirements.
• Support patients with coeliac disease and function bowel disorders
• Advice for those with food allergies and intolerances
• Some dietitians will be able to prescribe (for example, nutritional supplements, infant formulas, PPIs, anti-spasmodic medication) or could undergo this training at a suitable point in their career.

A guide to dietitians in primary care can be found at: Dietitians-in-primary-care-a-guide-for-general-practice.pdf (bda.uk.com)

Training and Supervision

Pre-requisites

Dietitians usually complete a BSc in Dietetics, which is approved as a training programme by the British Dietetic Association (BDA). They also need to hold registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Training

As mentioned above, dietitians within Primary Care are banded at level 7 as FCPs. To become an FCP, professionals will need at least 5 years of postgraduate experience. What was Health England Education (HEE) have developed ‘roadmaps’ to outline the required training and experience needed to progress to an FCP level, and onwards to advanced practice, as required/appropriate.

The roadmap for dieticians can be found on the right-hand side of this page.

WT&E Roadmap FAQs can be a useful source of information: Roadmap FAQs | Workforce Transformation and Education (hee.nhs.uk).

The FCP roadmaps have been updated, with a preference for all new FCPs in the role to complete the roadmap via a taught route. Further details can be found on this in the two documents below.

Supervision

A roadmap supervisor will be needed to support FCP dieticians in their training and ongoing development. Further details on supervision for FCPs and how to access courses can be found at: https://swpca.org.uk/supervision/multi-professional-clinical-supervision-2.

Recruitment

An example job description can be found on the right of the page. Further recruitment advice including, suggestions of where to advertise for dietitians, can be found in the following document: Dietitians-in-primary-care-a-guide-for-general-practice.pdf (bda.uk.com).

Further resources

WT&E has produced some video case studies, which are available at Dietitians in primary care | Workforce Transformation and Education (hee.nhs.uk)

There are some slides on this site that might be useful for waiting rooms: How can a dietitian help you? | British Dietetic Association (BDA)