There
continues to be local variation in the terminology used to describe the
thickness of modified food for patients with dysphagia, as well as other
patients requiring a modified food texture diet. This can lead to confusion for
patients, carers and healthcare staff. Patient safety incidents have been
reported where this has led to harm, particularly when the imprecise term ‘soft
diet’ has been used.
This alert provides links to
a range of resources to assist providers with the transition to the
International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI) framework,
introducing standard terminology to describe texture modification for food and
drink, and to eliminate the use of imprecise terminology, including ‘soft diet’.
**Please note this is a reissue of the alert issued on 27 June. The only change is to the alert attachment, which had an incorrect issue date of 27 April 2018.**