Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the new NHS England guidance on Children’s community nursing pathway on bladder and bowel management includes measures to ensure that children with continence challenges receive prompt access to specialist services and are provided with the most appropriate continence products for their needs in adequate numbers.

NHS England's Standardising Community Health Services guidance supports commissioners and providers to improve the design, commissioning, and delivery of community health services. The guidance recognises bowel and bladder care as a lifelong need for children with long term and life limiting conditions and it is the responsibility of the clinical teams to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the child’s bladder and bowel needs and to prescribe continence products accordingly. Local commissioners and providers will determine their own clinical pathways and operating models for community health services, including bowel and bladder care for children.

The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/standardising-community-health-services-core-component-descriptions/