#CatheterCare Tweetchat

On Thursday 15th June, the Health Innovation Network hosted a Tweetchat on #cathetercare with @WeNurses. We wanted to know about people’s experiences of catheter care in their workplace, examples of good practice and challenges around catheter care. We were also interested in finding out about innovative solutions that people were using to overcome the barriers and stigma associated with catheter care and how we can increase awareness of catheter care with patients, healthcare professionals, carers and the general public.

Good examples and challenges around catheter care

There was lots of discussion around the challenges associated with catheter care, and it being a huge part of workload, particularly for district nurses. Another challenge that presented was that lots of people have long-term catheters without any information or clinical reasons as to why. These discussions were met with suggestions around increased education for patients and the catheter passport was raised as a means of educating patients, as well as being able to provide healthcare professionals with discharge information.

#Cathetercare: The word cloud generated from our Tweetchat

Overcoming the barriers and stigma associated with Catheter Care

Educating clinicians on good catheter care practice was a strong theme throughout the chat. I felt this was particularly relevant as there is a national push to prevent healthcare-associated gram-negative bacterial bloodstream infections – CAUTIs being a main cause. More on that here.

Many people felt that a short video to depict a patient’s experience would be a powerful educational tool, as well as teaching junior staff ‘in the moment’. To that end, the Health Innovation Network has developed an animation for healthcare professionals, which they are more than happy for people to use. Find it here.

A highlight of the chat for me was hearing from @NurseDeJaeger about a great initiative around increasing patient advocacy and awareness through a weekly nurse and patient catheter cafe, called ‘Meet the TWOCcers’. So simple yet so clever, and a great way of de-stigmatising catheters.

Increasing awareness around Catheter Care

The challenges around urinary catheters and reaching more people to increase awareness were identified as ongoing issues. Through collaboration with passionate people, sharing good practice and initiatives and learning from one another as a community, we can make a difference. Keep the conversations going by following #cathetercare and letting @HINSouthLondon know about anything you think people may be interested in.

To coincide with #WorldContinenceWeek, we are running #CatheterCare Awareness Week (19-23 June) and aim to tackle the stigma around catheter care and breakdown the associated barriers.

For more information and resources, including our animation, pledges cards, posters and several short videos click here. 

If you have any questions, please email hin.southlondon@nhs.net.