Adult and Paediatric Enteral Feeds and Associated Equipment/Consumables, including a Home Enteral Feeding Service

Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland (HSCNI) has identified scope for improvement to the current arrangements for ordering and supply of adult and paediatric enteral feeds and the equipment required for their administration. An executive summary of the Thematic Review of Ordering and Supply Arrangements for Home Enteral Tube Feeds and Equipment has been provided for background information.

This document will help provide context to the considerations HSCNI has to make in order to progress this service change/redesign (Nb. target implementation/go-live date for proposed redesigned service is early-mid 2027). It is important to note that current figures indicate approx. 745 home adult and 625 home paediatric patients regionally require to avail of a home enteral feeding service, in addition to a current maximum of 420 adult in-patients and 65 paediatric in-patients regionally requiring to be enterally fed on a daily basis, although it should be acknowledged that there is a growing trend in terms of patient numbers.

Trust-by-Trust breakdown of current patient numbers is presented in the Supplier Brief accessible via PME CfT reference 6375145. It is envisaged that the HSCNI region will be split in two geographically (likely a three-Trust / two-Trust split, but still TBA), with a different supplier awarded the business in each of the sub-regions and required to meet the needs of both home and in-patient, and adult and paediatric patients managed by the HSCNI Trusts making up the assigned sub-region.