Healthy eating
The home enteral feeding service (HEF) is a service for both adults and children living with a feeding tube in County Durham and Darlington (except Easington, which is covered by a different NHS Trust). Our adult and children's teams includes dietitians, dietetic assistants, specialist nursing support and admin support.
Enteral feeding or tube feeding involves providing liquid nutrition to people who are not able to meet their nutrition and hydration needs from eating and drinking. The team work closely with Nutricia, the company currently providing the feeds and tube feeding equipment in our area. We provide assessment and support on an ongoing basis for adults and children living with a feeding tube (enteral feeding) in the community. Our service aims to help you meet your nutrition and hydration needs, taking into account your medical history, background and lifestyle. You will be offered regular assessment and reviews by a dietitian to support you with all aspects of enteral tube feeding.
Our Trust specialist nurses can also provide advice on managing problems with your tube or help you change your feeding tube. We provide and arrange training sessions to those involved with providing enteral feeds, including patients, their carers, nursing and residential homes, schools and nurseries.
The service is one of only a few in the country that does not need your GP to prescribe your feeds. Nutricia supplies our patients with regular deliveries of their feed and equipment. They work closely with the dietitians. Nutricia also provide a nursing service to support with training, equipment and tube care.
Our service is provided in clinics in sites across the county, including Bishop Auckland, Darlington, Durham and Shotley Bridge Hospitals. We can also visit you at home and provide support by telephone. We also visit other settings, including nursing homes, schools and day centres.
Contact us
Please contact us if you would like any further details about tube feeding, including information to help you make a decision about whether to have a feeding tube placed. Other useful contact information is available below.
If you need to refer a new patient to our services, please visit Dietetic Referral Criteria for guidance
If you have a problem with your tube and equipment (including feeding pumps) outside of normal office hours please contact Nutricia's national Out of Hours Advice Line on: 0800 093 3672. This line is manned by Nutricia Homeward Nurses. Alternatively Nutricia have some videos on their website which may be useful.
You can also contact NHS 111 for advice.
Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns about your feeding tube or feeding plan.
The Nutricia Nurse can help with tube, feeding pump and equipment problems, or to help organise training. This team is available Monday to Friday during office hours - please call: 0345 762 3652
For help with managing your feed deliveries, please call Homeward on: 0345 762 3656 or visit Nutricia Homeward online.
Useful resources
We've provided a number of independently-run tube feeding related online resources that you may find helpful.
Nutricia's delivery service is called Nutricia Homeward. For more information on this service, including online stock checking, please see here. Nutricia Homeward also have a number of helpful tools, videos and how-to guides available online. To access these, please see the links in the side bar.
PINNT is a national patient support and advocacy group for individuals on enteral nutrition (tube feeding) and parenteral nutrition. See their website for links to local and regional groups, online forums, literature and a national telephone and email helpline.
Telephone: 020 3004 6193 or email: comms
For information and education around tube feeding in Motor Neuron Disease, including living with a feeding tube and potential alternatives (developed by SITraN - the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience). See the myTube website for further information.
For further dietetic information please visit the BDA, where you can find dietetic information on Malnutrition, Pressure sores and more.
