Incontinence: Health Services

(asked on 6th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to prepare and implement an NHS workforce plan to ensure effective incontinence management for patients, including adequate provision of pelvic physiotherapy for all patients who require it.


Answered by
Neil O'Brien Portrait
Neil O'Brien
This question was answered on 16th January 2023

The NHS Long Term Plan set out a commitment to ensure that women have access to multidisciplinary pelvic health clinics and pathways across England. NHS England is therefore rolling out Perinatal Pelvic Health services which are currently being set up in two-thirds of integrated care systems (ICSs) ahead of full national deployment from 2023/24. An objective of these services is to increase the number of pelvic health physiotherapists nationally so that all women have access to best practice perinatal pelvic health care in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance. As of September 2022, the two-thirds of ICSs currently implementing these services plan to recruit 67 additional pelvic health physiotherapists in total, of which 40 have already been recruited.

To support the provision of continence care for people living with dementia, the NHS RightCare scenario ‘Getting the dementia pathway right’ provides guidelines on continence care and support, good practice and where practice could be improved across the patient journey. This is supported by more detailed guidance set out in ‘Excellence in Continence Care Practical guidance for commissioners and leaders in health and social care’ to inform commissioning of high quality community continence services.

The Government has committed to publishing a workforce plan this year, which will include independently verified forecasts for the number of healthcare professionals required in future years, taking account of improvements in retention and productivity. This will include allied health professionals.

Reticulating Splines