In 2025, Abbott was successfully awarded the contract to supply enteral feeds to support patient care at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN), Putney, London.

The RHN is a charity, working closely with the NHS while operating independently of it. They have employed a range of therapies to help improve the quality of life for people with neuro-disabilities for over 160 years.

The RHN has a specialist and unique healthcare model, comprising both acute and long-term residential care. The hospital itself delivers specialised support to patients with diverse neurological conditions and brain injuries. The residential home, supported by on-site GP services, is located on the hospital grounds and provides specialist long-term and interim care for adults with profound disabilities.

Contract Manager Susan Brooks facilitated the contract implementation, which began in mid-March 2025.

Working closely with Senior Dietitian Tanita Flood and other RHN leads, Susan and her Abbott colleagues began ensuring that all the key elements were in place to deliver a smooth and seamless implementation ahead of the go-live date. A structured plan was formed to ensure efficient end-to-end delivery over a five-week period.

The RHN required a slightly unconventional two-fold approach to delivery. Nutritional supplies would need to be distributed to both the hospital’s pharmacy for ward patients, as well as directly to residents of the care home.

Previous pharmacy practice had involved twice-weekly bulk orders, allocated between wards. As part of the enhanced service model through the Hospital2Home programme, Abbott proposed an alternative approach, providing a direct-to-pharmacy delivery once per week, with all products arriving via the same vehicle that supports Hospital2Home patient deliveries. This solution helped streamline the process and improve efficiencies for the pharmacy team. The ordering system was set up and managed effectively to facilitate a smooth transition to Abbott feeds, ensuring patient care continued without disruption. Residential home patients were successfully integrated into the Hospital2Home system.

A detailed training programme was established for hospital staff to fully understand Abbott’s enteral feeds and services - including full training on the use of Abbott FreeGo pumps and associated care procedures. Posters were put up around the wards to raise awareness of the upcoming change among staff.

Daily face-to-face sessions with RHN clinical staff were conducted with excellent efficiency over the course of a week, with dedicated classrooms set up to optimise the training process. It was highlighted that this format contributed to an atmosphere of excitement from all involved and sparked a great deal of insightful discussion among participants.

The RHN’s Learning and Development Lead played a pivotal role in coordinating staff attendance - with a high level of engagement leading to over 85% of staff being trained during this initial period.

Both the Abbott and RHN teams enjoyed a close and collaborative relationship throughout the implementation process.

Clear communication pathways were essential in enabling the seamless integration of Abbott’s nutrition products and services into the RHN’s daily practice. Abbott maintained frequent contact with key RHN leads, discussing delivery schedules and the direct-to-ward delivery route, while providing regular updates to ensure everyone was kept well-informed throughout the process.

Susan also held conference calls between RHN leads and expert members of the Abbott team to answer any medical and operational queries that arose. This further demonstrated to the RHN team that their enteral feed contract was underpinned by clinical expertise and experience that they could place their confidence in.

Following the rigorous implementation process, the contract officially commenced on 1st April 2025. In the following weeks, review meetings were held to evaluate the effectiveness of the contract implementation and how it had affected day-to-day operations so far.

The response from the RHN team was extremely positive, with leads noting significant improvements to their nutritional care processes resulting from Abbott’s attentive and dependable service.

Abbott continues to ensure consistent and reliable supplement delivery, with ongoing monitoring of feed orders, regular colleague contact and support, and handling of prescriptions as part of the Hospital2Home service.

The collaborative relationship extends beyond the contract, with the Abbott team participating in a gardening day, along with the donation and planting of bulbs in the RHN herb garden, as part of Abbott’s “Community In Bloom” social responsibility project.