Revised UK IBD Standards launched to improve levels and consistency of care nationwide

Date: Nov-06-2013There have been significant improvements in the quality of care for people with Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis since the UK IBD Standards were first issued four years ago, but IBD clinicians and patient organisations state that there is plenty of scope for improvement. To address these shortcomings and the major changes taking place in the NHS, revised UK IBD Standards have been launched.

Developed by Crohn's and Colitis UK, the British Society of Gastroenterology, Primary Care Society of Gastroenterology, the Royal College of Nursing Gastrointestinal Nursing Forum and other leading organisations, the IBD Standards seek to inform NHS Managers and commissioning organisations of the six essential components of a quality IBD service - high quality care, locally delivered care, a patient-centred service, patient education and support, IT and Audit and evidence-based practice and research.

The IBD Standards mandate core aspects of good quality care including dedicated gastrointestinal wards, multidisciplinary team working, shared care arrangements between primary and secondary care and key assessment and monitoring practices and essential aspects of clinical research and audit required.

Standards of care have risen significantly for children and adults since the UK IBD Audit's first examination of IBD services and care in 2006, which identified unacceptable variation in the quality of IBD care. The most recent Audit round in 2010 benchmarked hospital adherence to the IBD Standards for the first time, and found that the provision of dedicated gastrointestinal wards rose from 67% in 2006 (before the Standards were developed) to 90% in 2010.

The level of IBD Nurse Specialist provision - essential for providing rapid routes back into secondary care for those experiencing a flare up - has risen over the same period from 56% to 78%. The number of Crohn's patients being weighed on admission has increased from 52% to 75%.

IBD Standards Group Chair and Crohn's and Colitis UK Chief Executive David Barker said today: "Thanks to really effective partnership and collaborative working I'm delighted that we have seen services for patients with IBD improve. Increasingly, services across the UK are recognising the importance of the IBD Standards and are raising their ambitions to meet them. However, there is clearly no room for complacency and the message is very clear - great work to date, but a significant journey is still ahead of us.

Tom Smith, Chief Executive of the BSG, said, "The BSG has been proud to be involved in the joint work establishing and revising the IBD Standards. The multi-professional and patient oriented approach to their formulation and update is an exemplary model for advocating and benchmarking the quality of care for patients with IBD.

The IBD Standards have been critically important in improving patient care and are used as the basis for national audit, allowing us to assess whether services for patients across the UK are meeting the standards that gastroenterologists, nurses, GPs, pharmacists, surgeons, dietitians and, centrally, patients have agreed should be delivered. The IBD standards and audit, along with more recent innovations like the IBD Registry, are vital tools for driving further service improvements.

While the data has shown that we are making progress, there is some way to go in fully achieving adherence nationally. The revised standards being launched today will reflect changes in the NHS and help commissioners, patients, hospitals and surgeries to ensure high quality services are delivered across the country. They have the BSG's full support."

The UK IBD Audit has shown that, although there is widespread multidisciplinary team working, only 24% of adult services have defined access to a Psychologist with an interest in IBD, while 59% of GPs reported being unable to get their IBD patients seen in secondary care within seven days in the event of a relapse. Despite the significant improvement in IBD Nurse provision, 79% of services failed to meet the standard of 1.5 whole time equivalent (WTE) IBD Nurse Specialists per 250,000 population.

In order to address these and other issues, and further improve care quality, the IBD Standards Group has revised the 2009 document, to take account of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 reforms, the recent developments in health policy in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the most recent UK IBD Audit findings and NICE's work to develop Clinical Guidelines for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

The revised Standards have been launched ahead of NICE's work on the development of an IBD Quality Standard in January 2014.

Courtesy: Medical News Today Note: Any medical information available in this news section is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional.