The Southampton Mealtime Assistance Roll-out Trial (SMART)

Experimenteel: Volunteer mealtime assistance

Trained volunteers will provide mealtime assistance to older hospital inpatients at one mealtime each weekday.

Gedragsmatig: Volunteer mealtime assistance

Feasibility and acceptability of volunteer mealtime assistants in different hospital departments

Is it feasible to recruit and sustain sufficient volunteers to provide mealtime assistance across a large hospital trust? Are these volunteers acceptable to patients, relatives, and staff? This will be determined by recording the number of volunteers recruited, trained and assessed and by recording their activity, in numbers of mealtimes assisted per week and duration of volunteering. If a volunteer discontinues their role, the reasons will be identified for this.

Acceptability will be assessed through qualitative methods- interviews with patients and relatives and focus groups with nursing staff and volunteers.

Changes in food choice and dietary intake before and after the introduction of volunteer mealtime assistants

The food choices and dietary intake of patients on the wards under study will be determined twice prior to the introduction of the volunteers and twice after their introduction. This will take place at the mealtime where the volunteers are assisting. The weight of meals served is portion controlled by the hospital caterers to within 10% of the stated weight. Therefore, using these stated weights and by measuring the leftover weight of food, we will calculate each patient's dietary intake at that mealtime.

Costs to the hospital trust associated with implementing a volunteer mealtime assistance programme

Staff costs in terms of time spent training and supporting volunteers will be recorded, as will any consumables required for the study. The costs will be totalled to provide an overall cost estimate of implementing a volunteer mealtime assistance programme.