Improving care for people with an indwelling urinary catheter catalyst film

This film was developed as a teaching and learning resource as part of a study for the Research for Patient Benefit Programme (NHS National Institute for Health and Care Research). It has been designed so that it could be used for individual professional learning but also as part of team quality improvement work, such as experience-based co-design or experience-led commissioning. The film has been put together from analysis of a national sample of 36 catheter users who have lived with an indwelling urinary catheter for at least 3 months. Researchers at the University of Oxford collected interviews with people all round the country, many on video, some audio or written only. This resource presents findings from the interviews that are particularly useful for local people, patients, families and NHS staff. These are selected clips but all the interview extracts, around 250, are available on the ‘Living with a urinary catheter’.  The interviews are not just about NHS care but also much wider experiences, for example feelings about having an indwelling catheter, blockages, infections, travelling locally and abroad, and sex and relationships.

For this resource the original researchers, Dr. Suman Prinjha and Dr. Alison Chapple, pulled out specific themes around experiences of services and ‘touchpoints’ where people come into contact with the NHS. Obviously everybody has a different experience, though some patterns do start to emerge from looking at many stories. Some of the things catheter users say may not be directly relevant to your local service. But our hope is that listening to them will help you reflect and spark some ideas for what could be done differently. 

There may be some clips where people are disappointed or sad, because living with a permanent indwelling catheter can be a very difficult experience. You will hear some negative comments, because we can learn a lot from looking at when things went wrong and what could have been done to make that a better experience. Even when patients are largely positive about the rest of their care, one damaging bad moment can colour the whole experience. But listen out for positive comments too, where people remember some small act of kindness or a particularly good moment that made all the difference to them.

Ethics
This study was approved by Berkshire Research Ethics Committee (REC reference number: 09/H0505/66)

Funding Acknowledgement:
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) under its Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme (Grant Reference Number PB-PG-0110-19217).

Department of Health Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the HSDR Programme, NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health.

And thanks to all the people who took part in the interviews.