Living with a urinary catheter
Getting catheter equipment
Catheters and other items such as drainage bags are prescribed by the doctor. Some pharmacies have to order the catheters and other equipment, so advise people to make sure they have enough to last while waiting for the next order to come in. Many healthcare companies offer a home delivery service whereby the prescription is sent to the company and they send the catheters and other supplies to a person’s home.
Some people we interviewed said they took their prescription to the local pharmacy (chemist) where they got all their catheter supplies, including drainage bags, catheters, wipes and valves. Stuart got everything he needed on prescription apart from rubber gloves, and wondered why this was. Several people had the supplies delivered to them at home by their local pharmacy. A few people who took daily medications because of their condition had repeat prescriptions for those.
Michelle gets 2 catheters a month and drainage bags on repeat prescription from her pharmacy. Her...
Michelle gets 2 catheters a month and drainage bags on repeat prescription from her pharmacy. Her...
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Catheters, I still get provided for locally. They’re on my repeat prescription. I have the, I can order 2 catheters every month and I also order my leg bags and my night bags on my repeat prescription every month.
So there I phone up my pharmacy. I tell them what I need on a monthly basis. They organise it all with my GP practice and, two days later, it’s all, get the doorbell ring and it’s all delivered.
Oh that’s good.
Which I have to say is a huge advantage these days. Whereas years ago it used to be, put your prescription into the doctors, go back and collect it two or three days later, take that to the pharmacy. The pharmacy would get everything in. You’d go back two or three days after that and have a huge box of things that had to be manhandled out to the car, and carers would have to organise, so nowadays from that perspective that’s a lot easier.
My continence pads come through the continence service here and that’s just changed to a nationally provided service. So I know that every ten weeks I’ll get a delivery of continence pads, which usually I’ll have sort of ten or twelve packs arrive at a time which means trying to find storage for those.
So they might come from a long way away?
Yeah, they just get delivered by a delivery firm now.
People with certain medical conditions, those requiring a permanent fistula or stoma that may need continuous surgical dressing, or anyone needing an appliance such as a catheter, can get a valid Medical Exemption Certificate for free NHS prescriptions (see Resources). A fistula is an abnormal connection between an organ, vessel or intestine and another structure. Fistulas are usually the result of injury or surgery. A stoma is an opening, either natural or surgically created, which connects a portion of the body cavity to the outside environment (e.g. a colostomy).
Most people found it easier to order what they needed over the phone and often got their orders the next day. Gordon, aged 96, wondered why at his age he had to order the supplies himself. John Z said that his catheter often became blocked. When he ordered more catheters over the phone through his local continence service, he was sometimes asked why he needed more so soon. Several people stressed the need for spare catheter equipment at home and also taking spares on holiday or when going to the hospital.
Stewart recommends taking your own catheter equipment on holiday or to the hospital. Hospitals...
Stewart recommends taking your own catheter equipment on holiday or to the hospital. Hospitals...
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Take your equipment with you, your own equipment if you’re on or going on holiday… I always make sure that I have a spare, well one or two spare catheters and bags and flip-flows.
And make sure, if you’re going to go into hospital, ask, take some of those with you because even the hospital, even if the hospital say that they have a catheter, it may be a different type altogether. And, if they haven’t got what you need, then they try to fit you up with what they think is the nearest, but very often the nearest isn’t near at all.
And there have been times when I’ve been in hospital and been fitted up with pads and so on that were obviously not right. They were more like for, you know for pregnant mums and so on. Much too big and clumsy.
Melanie keeps spare catheters and bags in case of an emergency. She also has a spare urethral...
Melanie keeps spare catheters and bags in case of an emergency. She also has a spare urethral...
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Do you usually keep an emergency supply at home for changing the catheter?
I like to keep, I have spare catheters, yes, in case there’s an emergency. I have spare catheters there and spare leg bags. I like to keep a nice little stock pile and I suppose one always lives with the awareness that if you got a blockage you might have to have an emergency change. I still have with me, that I got from hospital, it’s an emergency urethral catheter pack. So if for some terrible reason something happened with my suprapubic, I have the ability and the knowledge, because they trained me to do this in hospital, I know how to do an emergency catheterisation on myself.
Pat ordered catheter supplies for her husband and said she ordered 5 at a time. She pointed out that if you get too many catheters at a time, they might go ‘out of date’. Some people ordered their catheter supplies on the internet and these were delivered to them at home or, in Iain’s case, at work.
You might not get the most up to date information on drainage bags at the hospital. Iain...
You might not get the most up to date information on drainage bags at the hospital. Iain...
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The hospital doesn’t always give you the most up to date information on maybe what collection bags are available for you. And the one website I find very beneficial, they’re also, it’s a company, it’s run by Coloplast, it’s one called Charter Healthcare. They do urological supplies, you know dispensing.
All you do is to get a prescription from your GP and they send you the catheter bags at your house for free, and they’re fantastic. They do not just their own makes but every other make of bags out there, and they’ve also got a very small selection of what they get in the hospital, whereas in the community, and there’s such a better selection out there now than there was maybe even say ten years ago.
Right, what’s the website address?
Charterhealthcare.co.uk I think.
I’ll have a look.
But if you Google Charter Healthcare, you’ll find them straightaway. As I say, it’s run by Coloplast, they run it. But they’re on their own and they sell every urological bag there is out there. They do a lot of like stoma stuff as well I believe, they do everything, delivered to your house and it’s very discrete.
I get this stuff sent to my work for example, and I’m not worried about being seen by having that there, ‘cos there’s nothing of their name on it at all apart from the distribution address. It’s just a very small name on there, a distribution label. And only if you know what it is, ‘cos it’s very non-descript, and Charter Health could be anything.
Charles orders his catheter equipment on the internet. He was told very little at the hospital...
Charles orders his catheter equipment on the internet. He was told very little at the hospital...
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I get them [catheter supplies] from a company which has been delivering me, first off they delivered my IC catheters. So I’ve been dealing with them, and they more or less do next business day delivery.
So if I ordered it, I order it on the Internet or you can phone them up, “Oh, I need some of these.” They have, now I’m very fortunate. Because of my condition I don’t pay. I have a medical exemption certificate for all my medication and medical equipment, so basically I don’t have to pay for any of this. And I have, I probably get deliveries once a month of leg bags, night bags, all the other bits and pieces as well, you know.
They also supply wipes. They’ll supply disposal bags for, because every day there’s a dead night bag, and they go into a plastic bag which you, we can actually get rid of in the rubbish. So, you know, they’re very useful and they have actually been quite helpful.
And can people get all that information from the hospital when you first go there?
Unfortunately not. The hospital information is, this is why one of the problems, I think, is that the hospital information is lacking in the sense that they believe that this sort of care, this sort of ongoing information should be the province of the GP. And they don’t, the hospital will deal with acute situations but not ongoing situations.
For instance, I don’t see as a matter of course either my neurologist any more, used to, and I don’t see my, sort of my occupational therapy people on a regular basis, I only ever see them on an acute basis. So there’s an assumption that new information will be supplied to you by the GP.
Some people would have liked more information about the different kinds of catheter equipment available, such as the various types of valves and drainage bags. Drainage bags, for example, can vary in size and where they can be worn depending on the length of tubing. Charles had never been told about this in hospital and he assumed it had been left for his GP to tell him.
Several people preferred to order the equipment they’d used for some time rather than research other alternatives. Richard said he prefers to stick with what works rather than experiment (see ‘The catheter of the future: what catheter users say they’d like’).
Richard’s wife orders his catheter equipment. He tried a different catheter valve once but it...
Richard’s wife orders his catheter equipment. He tried a different catheter valve once but it...
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They [catheter supplies] are delivered on a regular basis. My wife deals with that generally, and we’ve had a bit of difficulty with the authorities trying to take you this way and that way. And the main difficulty we had was, I think it was an intention of cutting down on the cost, but they tried to persuade us to use different, I’ve got a flip-flow valve on the catheter. And they tried to persuade me to use this other valve which didn’t match to my catheter. And so I kept getting leakage, which was highly, was really infuriating.
But then we’ve gone back to the original flip-flow valve and that’s sorted it out. But you do have to watch out for things such as that. You could easily think well, you know it doesn’t matter to me, I’m not bothered which valve I use. But certainly if you’ve got a working system, you’re best to stick with it in my experience.
Yeah. So if something works, don’t make too many changes?
No.
Last reviewed October 2018.
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