The Society works for professional development in nutrition for members, to recognise and encourage appropriate standards of training in nutrition. The Society offers professional qualifications to nutritionists through a number of registration schemes, the details of which can be found above. The Society organises an accreditation scheme for courses in Public Health Nutrition. Three courses have been accredited to date. Full details of this scheme are available on the accreditation page . The Society has set up working parties to examine how it can support professional development in Nutritional Science and also in Sports and Exercise Nutrition.

BANS is a national database of patients receiving artificial nutritional support in the UK. BANS reports are available here Many trusts already contribute to this database regularly providing information about their patients both in hospital and at home on artificial nutritional support. The aims of BANS are: To assess whether the organisational structure of nutritional support services, and standards of care, as set by the King's Fund Report and BAPEN are adequately met. To provide information to health planners about the growth of artificial nutrition and its effectiveness in different diseases as well as in different circumstances. To increase awareness of the importance of malnutrition and nutritional support by regularly communicating the local and national results to participating centres, professional organisations, the Department of Health and journals. To establish an important national platform on which to base future fundamental scientific research and consider new organisational and economic strategies for this rapidly developing area. To establish a communication system which can be used to promote BAPEN's fundamental aims of standards, education and research.