Public hospitals will undergo unannounced inspections to ensure that patients are being properly fed and hydrated, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has said.

Inspection teams will assess whether patients are being provided with good quality meals and if they are being helped with eating when necessary.

According to HIQA's chief executive, Phelim Quinn, malnutrition currently affects at least one in four patients admitted to hospitals in Ireland and this can seriously affect quality of life.

Malnutrition refers to under-nutrition that affects a person's health and wellbeing. It can come about if the body cannot use food properly, which can lead to a person losing weight and developing nutritional deficiencies. Certain diseases can also lead to appetite suppression.

"Malnutrition affects recovery and causes unnecessary illness and death. Evidence shows that malnutrition and dehydration often occur together. Dehydration occurs when more fluid is lost than taken in," explained Mr Quinn.

He pointed out that patients who are already malnourished when they are admitted to hospital ‘are more likely to lose weight during their hospital stay, and their weight loss is proportionately higher'.

Certain patient group are more vulnerable to malnutrition, including older people, cancer patients and surgical patients.

Mr Quinn also pointed out that there are economic consequences associated with this issue. Malnutrition currently affects an estimated 140,000 adults and in 2007, healthcare costs associated with malnourished patients were estimated to be around €1.4 billion.

In an attempt to combat this problem, HIQA has just published a guide to its review of nutrition and hydration in pubic acute hospitals. The review will involve self-assessment by hospitals and unannounced inspections.

The aim is to ensure that hospitals ‘have the essential elements of good nutrition and hydration care in place'.

All public acute hospitals, other than paediatric and stand-alone maternity hospitals, will be expected to complete a self-assessment questionnaire. Around 13 hospitals will then be subject to unannounced inspections to verify results.

"Inspection teams will visit hospital wards during mealtimes to see first-hand if patients get good quality meals, a choice of food and that they are helped with eating when necessary," HIQA said.

According to Mr Quinn, these unannounced inspections will begin ‘later this year'.

"These inspections will be used to validate self-assessment findings provided by hospitals and promote a process of continuous improvement. A national overview of our findings will be published in 2016," he added.