A scheme to reduce E.coli infections following the use of a catheter and improving catheter care across the system has been developed in Cumbria ahead of a national launch.
With patients with long term catheters moving between primary and secondary care, it can be difficult to decide what the current care requirements are. The patient-held passport will travel with the patient, just like an actual passport, and not only provides advice for the patient but also vital information for health care professionals to enable the best care to be delivered.
The Catheter Passport will be available for all patients being admitted or discharged to and from both NCUH and CPFT hospitals and also patients in the community with long term catheters.
Nicola O'Reilly, matron for Infection Prevention & Control at NCUH explains: “Use of the catheter passport will ensure that everyone involved with that patient will know exactly what the plan of care is such as when and why the catheter was inserted, when it needs changed and also if there have been any difficulties experienced. Currently, finding out all of this information can be difficult and time consuming for staff especially for when are unable to provide this information themselves. The passport will provide all the catheter information in one place for all to use.
“We are hoping to see the passport being widely used throughout north Cumbria over the coming months. It was trialled really successfully with some positive feedback from both patients and staff. The passport has a lot of useful information for patients to help them self-manage their catheter as well as clinical space for staff to use to document catheter changes and reviews. Often this information is not available in one place and catheters are then changed or not changed when required putting patients at increased risk of infection”.
The Cumbria Catheter Passport has now been approved and available to order for all wards and departments within NCUH and CPFT. The passport will also be available for primary care colleagues as well as Cumbria County Council who will provide copies directly to residential care homes.
This has been a huge system wide initiative supported by the GNBSI (Gram-negative bloodstream infections) group and. The NHS and partners have put Cumbria ahead of the game in terms of catheter passport development nationally