ObjectiveTo understand the development of clinical nutrition departments in western China, analyze the main problems and factors restricting its development, and provide a basis for promoting the construction and development of clinical nutrition departments in western China and formulating clinical nutrition management standards.MethodsQuestionnaires were used to investigate the development of clinical nutrition services in some hospitals in 11 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions in western China (except Tibet) in March 2019. ResultsA total of 230 hospitals participated in the survey. Most clinical nutrition departments set up outpatient clinics (76.1%), with an average annual number of outpatients of 884; most of them carried out nutrition inspection visit/follow-up work (86.5%), and the average number of inspection visit/follow-ups was 3 876. Most hospitals had incomplete hardware and software facilities in the clinical nutrition departments. The charging items for diagnosis and treatment were complicated, and the charging standards were uneven. There were still 47.0% of the clinical nutrition departments of hospitals that did not offer diagnosis and treatment charging items. The surveyed hospitals believed that the talent team was the number one factor restricting the development of the clinical nutrition department, and regular skills training was the number one project that urgently needed the help of the Clinical Nutrition Discipline Alliance of West China Hospital of Sichuan University.ConclusionIn the future, the western region should increase the investment in hardware and software facilities, strive for policy support for maintaining department operations and formulate unified standards to regulate the development of disciplines.