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Lack of continence help at Leighton Hospital urology dept

Posted By patsy

"Lack of continence help at Leighton Hospital urology dept"

About: Leighton Hospital / Urology

(as the patient),

In a word i wouldn't bother asking for help if you have a problem with incontinence, far more help is available from incontinence nurses or your own GP. I feel there is no help for people with this condition at Leighton hospital, in my experience they just don’t seem to be interested. This is obviously my own personal experience. Reading the previous post where the patient describes information not being reported accurately was my experience too. As for the reply saying that treatment will follow the assessment of urodynamics, many people do not have positive urodynamics - so this hospital will not help them! What this hospital is failing to understand that some people get help from medications even when the tests prove negative. Surely this should put a big question mark over the reliability of these invasive tests! NICE guidelines written this year admits that there is no reliable evidence to support the accuracy of urodynamics. Even though I suffer from lots of “overactive bladder” symptoms not much help was offered to me. I have now had to return to my GP asking for her help and feel thoroughly let down by this hospital.
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Responses

Response from Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 16 years ago
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 07/12/2007 at 14:52

We are very sorry to hear when patients are dissatisfied with the service we provide at the Urology Dept at Leighton hospital. We deal with a number of embarrassing conditions and are pleased to hear that the nurses were helpful and understanding. It is difficult to comment on individual case without having more details. If you feel that you would like to share your experience, so to enable us to learn from your experience then please do not hesitate to contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service telephone 01270 612410 or we can arrange for a member of the Patient Experience Team to meet with you to undertake a patient “discovery” interview. This method has proved very helpful to patients in being able to talk to someone independent of our service to feed back anonymously the patient’s experience in detail. Urodynamics is a diagnostic test that urologists use to assess bladder function. There are a number of bladder conditions that produce similar bladder symptoms. For example frequency and urgency can be symptoms of an overactive bladder, an oversensitive bladder or even an obstruction to the flow of urine from the bladder. Therefore, it is important to establish wherever possible the underlying cause of bladder problems as treatment will differ for various bladder conditions. However, we acknowledge that during the urodynamics test we cannot always replicate the symptoms experienced by the patient. Typically, if the urodynamic investigation is normal and the patient’s urinary symptoms are bothersome, there are a number of medications that are prescribed such as anticholinergic tablets to dampen down the symptoms of an over active bladders. The Urology Dept at Leighton Hospital has a lead consultant for urinary continence who is an expert in this field and works at national level to improve services for patients with overactive bladders and urinary incontinence. There is a national support group for patients who experience overactive bladder symptoms and they can be contacted on Cystitis and Overactive Bladder Foundation .

Update posted by patsy (the patient)

I am very pleased to read that you acknowledge that you cannot always replicate the symptoms experienced by patients during a urodynamics test. I am also pleased to read that you will offer the patient anticolinergics if their symptoms remain bothersome, this option was not offered to me! Obviously I appreciate that you cannot comment on individual cases. I am slightly disappointed that you do not go further with your explanation on how patients are helped when all medications fail to relieve their symptoms. Unfortunately for some patients anticolinergics either do not work or stop working after a while. According to the nice guidelines 2007 if medications fail to help a patient with irritative bladder symptoms then botox should be given as a last result. As your reply has made no comment to the use of botox when anticolinergics fail to help these patients with bothersome symptoms but no urodynamics findings, then one can only presume as in my case, Leighton hospital may not be able to help these patients any further. I feel it is a great shame that that patients are left alone to struggle on with their symptoms when botox may actually help them.
Response from Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 16 years ago
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 13/03/2008 at 12:31
Published on Care Opinion at 00:00

We do offer Botox as a treatment option on an individualised basis for those patients with urinary symptoms whereby standard treatment options are not effective for various reasons (i.e. Anticholinergic therapy). It is difficult to comment on individual cases though we can say that Botox is considered and offered to patients as and when appropriate.

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