The Whittington Community Bladder and Bowel service in Haringey and Islington is implementing changes to continence pad provision. To ensure the success of the updated pathways, GPs are asked to support patients in engaging with treatment-focused interventions from the outset.

Setting clear expectations around behavioural therapies such as bladder training and pelvic floor exercises, helps promote recovery and reduces unnecessary reliance on continence pads. Please do not refer ‘for pads’ as this sets unrealistic expectations.

Anticholinergics and beta-3 agonists should not be initiated until patients have first completed, or attempted, behavioural interventions and require additional support.

Over the next few weeks all patients will be communicated with by letter with clear details of how to contact the team if questions arise. 

The main changes are:

• the service will no longer provide minimally absorbent pads
• pull-up pants will no longer be supplied
• the daily limit of pads provided will be three. 

These changes are necessary due to rapidly increasing service demand and significant rises in product and delivery costs with no increase in funding.

Further details are available in the download. 

Patient leaflets are also available on the Whittington Health website.