Incontinence — House of Commons, 2017-09-05
Topic: Health
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): I commend my hon. Friend’s work for the all-party parliamentary group on continence care, which does invaluable work in this area I am going to jump to another section of my speech. It is shocking how many people go into hospital with no continence problems but may be incontinent or doubly incontinent and have major problems by the time they leave. It is far too easy for nurses and doctors to see the use of pads as the only solution. At some point, I hope the Minister will look at how we can gather figures from hospitals on how many patients enter with continence problems and how many leave with continence problems to get some idea of how great the problem is. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on Parkinson’s, and the Minister will be aware that Parkinson’s UK has campaigned for many years due to the problems that people with Parkinson’s have when they go into hospital and their carefully timed medication regime is changed to fit in with drugs rounds on the ward. A perfectly mobile and continent person can become immobile and incontinent due to NHS failure. That cannot be allowed to carry on. It is shameful that we are facing such problems in 2017 Diagnoses are not made in a huge number of cases. Healthcare professionals do not provide consistent assessments, diagnosis and follow-through according to standard practice. Even basic things, such as an assessments of where the toilet is in relation to where someone sleeps, are not carried out by social workers. I cannot begin to tell the House how many times people are admitted to hospital as the result of a fall at night caused by them trying to negotiate the stairs to go up or down to a toilet that is on a different level from where they sleep. It is shocking that people face having to wear an incontinence pad because they cannot use the stairs or because there is a risk of them falling at night when accessing the toilet. We simply must get this sorted out Incontinence can cause additional problems. Urinary tract infections, pressure sores, anxiety, depression and falls cost the NHS a great deal of money, and we could save money by making relatively simple changes. I have not been able to find any comprehensive analysis of the cost to the NHS and other services that would demonstrate potential savings from early interventions. As far as I am aware, such an assessment has not been carried out. A series of parliamentary questions tabled last year revealed that data are not held by the Department of Health on the number of people admitted to hospital for catheter-associated urinary tract infections, for non-catheter-associated urinary tract infections or with urinary incontinence generally. If it existed, such information would help to clarify the extent of the problem. An estimate was offered in 2014-15, with NHS trusts reporting an annual cost of £27.6 million, which is almost certainly an underestimate Too many individuals are bearing the brunt of managing their condition. Buying a regular supply of pads costs anywhere between 10p a pad, for a child, and 60p a pad, depending on the type of pad required.