This team is made up of specialist dietitians and dietetic assistants who provide individualised nutritional care to both inpatients and outpatients. To ensure we are providing the best nutritional assessment and advice, we are actively involved in audits, service evaluation and research.
Conditions we manage
We support a wide range of liver, biliary, and pancreatic diseases including:
- liver disease: acute liver failure and cirrhosis from any cause (alcohol-related, biliary, autoimmune, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hepatitis)
- hepato-pancreato-biliary cancers including pancreatic, liver and cholangiocarcinoma
- pancreatic diseases including acute and chronic pancreatitis
We are also a core member of the liver transplant team and are actively involved in the whole liver transplant pathway. This involves providing specialist nutrition-related assessments and monitoring to those who are:
- being assessed for a liver transplant
- waiting for a liver transplant
- post-liver transplant
What to expect
Malnutrition (poor nutrition) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and/or strength) are very common in liver, biliary and pancreatic disease. As part of each assessment we:
- Assess appetite and food intake.
- Identify and support any barriers to eating (physical, environmental, financial, psychological).
- Assess for changes in weight and muscle mass (we carry out anthropometric measurements including upper arm muscle and fat mass and grip strength).
- Assess for changes/barriers to physical activity .
- Assess for malabsorption (difficulty in the digestion or absorption of nutrients from food) and may suggest an adjustment of food choices or medication to take with food to help manage this.
Following a detailed nutritional assessment, we provide individualised dietary advice on how to meet your nutritional needs through food, or we can advise if you need additional support to meet your nutritional needs e.g. with oral nutritional supplements or tube-feeding.
Who we work with
We work closely within a multi-disciplinary team with a wide range of highly specialist healthcare professionals including:
- hepatologists (liver doctors)
- liver Transplant and hepato-pancreato-biliary Surgeons
- liver transplant co-ordinators
- clinical nurse specialists
- physiotherapists
How to be referred
Inpatients can be referred to dietetics via PICS and outpatient referrals are accepted for patients who are under a consultant hepatologist or consultant liver surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
Get in touch
Last reviewed: 17 November 2025