abstract: Food for thought: the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care have launched a clinical guideline to help NHS staff identify patients who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. It recommends that all hospital inpatients on admission and outpatients at their first clinic appointments are screened, and spells out when nutrition support should be considered. The guideline also suggests that all healthcare professionals who are directly involved in patient care should receive education and training, relevant to their post, on the importance of providing adequate nutrition, and that each acute hospital trust should employ at least one specialist nutrition support nurse and establish a nutrition steering committee.