Care homes: Continence promotion and management

Islington
Under Review — this page was due to be reviewed by Wednesday, 01 February 2023. The information shown here may be outdated.

Many care home residents are likely to have some degree of incontinence or dysfunction, however this incontinence should not be viewed as inevitable.  

In the first instance, with good management incontinence may be preventable, as it is a symptom of underlying problems that, with simple assessment and investigation, can be identified and treated. 

Even when a cure is not achievable, optimum methods of incontinence management can produce 'social continence', alleviate embarrassment, and preserve patient dignity.


Bladder and Bowel Care Service

There is a long established relationship between Islington care homes and the bladder and bowel care team, which works out of Whittington Hospital. 

Jan Gallacher (Assistant Practitioner) leads the care home assessments with administrative support from Adeyemi Oduneye. 
e: janice.gallacher@nhs.net

How to refer

Every month, each care home sends the service a list of new patients that needs continence assessments, as well as those who no longer need pads. The service then carries out new assessments and, if needed, annual reviews of existing patients.

Care homes can also contact Jan or Adeyemi directly to request an urgent assessment or re-assessments.

During the initial COVID-19 crisis, all the service’s staff were redeployed, resulting in delays in assessments. To help with this assessment, forms are being sent to care homes for each patient with a request to fill out the past medical history and current medication sections. Doing so in a legible manner then allows for the assessment to be carried out remotely with a member of care home staff who knows the patient.


Review date: Wednesday, 01 February 2023