The Paediatric Continence Forum (PCF) is a campaigning group of health professionals, patient representatives and commercial members that engages with the Government and policymakers nationally to raise awareness of childhood bladder and bowel problems and to improve NHS services in this area of child health.
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News
The PCF welcomes new NHS continence care guidelines
The PCF has welcomed the new guidelines on Excellence in Continence Care, published by NHS England at the end of July.
The guidelines, which outline how the NHS should be supporting individuals with continence issues, takes on board several PCF recommendations. This includes ensuring there is good access to services for young people, as well as a link to the PCF Commissioning Guide.
The Excellence in Continence Care guidelines indicate that it is “essential that all children and young people with a bladder or bowel problem have a comprehensive bladder and bowel assessment”, and recognise how stressful it can be for young people transitioning in to adult health services.
The PCF will continue to promote the benefits of a single integrated service to improving diagnosis and treatment for continence issues.
The PCF celebrates World Continence Week
PCF members took part in World Continence Week (June 18-24), which has been raising awareness of the plight of people with continence issues since 2008. This platform highlights the needs of the one in 10 children and young people across the UK who are affected by continence issues and calls for better provisions at local level. Continence problems, namely bedwetting, daytime wetting, constipation or soiling, occur at a sensitive time in a child’s emotional and physical development, often causing feelings of low self-esteem and social isolation. They also contribute to family stress and to the very real risk of bullying by siblings and peers, which can in turn prevent children from taking full advantage of social and educational opportunities at school. The PCF advocates prevention, early detection and effective intervention in these problems through the provision of integrated, well-resourced, community-based paediatric continence services, led by a specially-trained paediatric continence nurse specialist. We direct you to our Continence Commissioning Guide and the EICC for further information.
The PCF Chair published in Nursing Times
The Chair of the PCF, Dr Penny Dobson MBE, has written an article for the Nursing Times highlighting the plight of the 900,000 children and young people experiencing continence difficulties in the UK, and the work of the PCF to improve NHS services in this area of child health.. The article outlines the findings from the PCF’s FOI audit carried out in 2017 compared with previous years, showing that only 41 percent of CCGs and health boards provided comprehensive and integrated community-based paediatric continence treatment services, and only 15 percent of local authorities provided a continence service following the transfer of school nurses and health visitors to local authority control.
Penny highlights that an unintended consequence of this poor provision is more children going to A&E and being admitted to hospital for advanced constipation and urinary tract infections, thereby undermining the Government’s pledge to bring more healthcare into the community – which is cheaper for the NHS and more effective for the patient.
The article also highlights the NICE-accredited Paediatric Continence Commissioning Guide which was published by the PCF in 2015 and is being updated this year, which provides advice for setting up “community-based, integrated and cost-efficient paediatric continence services.” It notes that it is encouraging that 64 percent of CCGs have heard of the Guide and 50 percent are using it. The article also brings the reader’s attention to NHS England’s Excellence in Continence Care guide, an updated version of which is also due to be published soon.
PCF pays tribute to Dame Tessa Jowell
The PCF is saddened to hear that Dame Tessa Jowell has lost her battle to cancer. She was a compassionate and tireless politician who made lasting contributions to improving child health policy, not least through her work on the Sure Start centre initiative. We send our condolences to her family.
PCF attends the 7th Global Forum on Incontinence (GFI)
Dr Penny Dobson MBE, chair of the Paediatric Continence Forum and PCF members Jone Rogers MBE and Davina Richardson
The Global Forum on Incontinence was held on the 17th-18th April in Rome.
Attended by over 400 delegates from 30 companies worldwide, this important Forum was sponsored by Essity Ltd., a company member of the PCF. The Conference focus was on “Outcomes in Continence Care” and we heard that despite the huge number of people with continence problems worldwide, there are still huge disparities in practice across the world. Despite this delegates responded with energy and passion to share and learn across country boundaries and PCF members were able to make a contribution on our work based upon the outcomes within the PCF Commissioning Guide – plus the mechanisms for measuring these. Key conclusions from the two days were; the importance of listening to and understanding the needs of the person with the continence problem in order to make the best assessment, improving the means to more accurately measure quality of life issues in this area – and, given universal financial constraints, the importance of using existing mechanisms ( such as in our case, the Care Quality Commission) to promote the measurement of Key Performance Indicators that were worked upon during the two days.”.