Project and activities

BABCON is arranged into four workstreams with three cross-cutting themes embedded throughout all we do.

1. Continence education: Improve continence education and training for all: public, patients, carers, healthcare staff and policy makers. Spreading the word about improving continence has relevance for all.
2. Continence promotion: Empower everybody to promote continence, individually and for those they care for, to ensure bladder and bowel symptoms are the best they can be. Environmental considerations are also key to explore if our local area limits those with bladder and bowel symptoms.
3. Continence research: Conduct high quality, relevant continence research with potential to improve care and education in all settings and publish this appropriately to enable all audiences to access the findings.
4. Integrated continence care: Ensure bladder and bowel care is joined up across the local health and social care systems to improve patient experience, including maximising digital communication potential and reducing missed opportunities to promote continence.

Cross-cutting themes

1. Making sure everyone is included: Through all of the workstreams, we will promote inclusivity and focus on ensuring particular patient groups are not overlooked, such as children and young people, people with learning disabilities and older adults.
2. Patient, carer and public viewpoints: Working with individuals experiencing bladder and bowel symptoms, and their carers’ and parents is vital to ensure we address the relevant issues in this area. Strong involvement from individuals with relevant experience is encouraged in all the BABCON HIT’s activities.
3. Making a difference to people’s lives: Ensuring all that we do makes a difference to people with bladder and bowel symptoms is a fundamental aim of the BABCON HIT. Looking at how we roll out what we are doing and how we measure the changes we make are key to encourage our understanding of the benefits of our projects and initiatives.

Projects

BABCON members are involved in a wide range of projects covering all aspects of continence care, education and lived experiences for all ages. Here are some of the outputs:

• Best Bristol was a series of engagement events held to identify the needs of people, clinicians and those organising services to improve the landscape for people with incontinence. See the  infographic describing the findings
• Collaborative research with HealthWatch Bristol found that one in three people who use bladder and bowel services had been affected by changes to these services during COVID. Read the report
• The West of England Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) developed the Voices for Change project in partnership with BABCON, to understand the challenges faced by those living with a bladder or bowel condition, or caring for someone who does. See the infographic summary | Read the report