Inflammatory bowel disease care ‘unacceptably’ variable
pharmafile | April 2, 2009 | News story | |Â Â GI, NHSÂ
The standard of care for patients with inflammatory bowel disease in the UK remains "unacceptably" variable.
The second national audit of the condition found many services had not improved at all in the three years since the first audit.
The Royal College of Physicians' Clinical Effectiveness and Evaluation Unit is responsible for this snapshot of services.
Their research suggested that hospital toilet facilities remain inadequate for patients' needs, while just one third of Crohn's patients received a visit from a dietitian during their hospital admission.
And psychological support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients is available in only a tenth of hospitals.
However, the audit found that use of prophylactic heparin, the recommended treatment to prevent thrombosis and embolism in hospitalised patients, has risen since 2006.
Prescriptions for UC patients were up from 54% to 73% and 55% to 71% for Crohn's patients.
There were also more designated specialist ward areas and more IBD nurses – although 38% of respondents still do not have an IBD nurse.
"The results show that significant improvements have been made in what is a relatively short period of time but there is clearly more work to be done," said Dr Ian Arnott, clinical lead on the audit.
The British Society of Gastroenterology, Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland and National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease partner the Royal College.
They recommend that all NHS Trusts and Health Boards should review their local audit results and take necessary steps to improve services.
In order to sustain quality improvement in IBD care, they want UK health departments to support future rounds of the audit.
The Health Foundation funded the research this time round and the audit had a participation rate of 87% among hospitals.
Arnott added: "The widespread acceptance and implementation of the IBD Standards are critical to ongoing quality improvement."
"This, together with further rounds of the UK IBD Audit and accompanying change implementation initiatives will deliver better, more consistent and safer services for patients."
The two main types of IBD – ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease – together affect about one in 250 people in the UK.
Current UC treatments include Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals' Asacol and Teva/Schering-Plough UK's Mesren.
Both have the same active ingredient, mesalazine, a drug in the 5-aminosalicylate (5-ASA) class which needs to be taken two or three times a day. Schering-Plough also markets Remicade for UC and Crohn's.
P&G last month launched an educational DVD explaining UC to sufferers.
Related stories:
P&G sponsors ulcerative colitis DVD
Friday, March 06, 2009
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