New map shows where to get support for bladder and bowel symptoms

Bladder and bowel services are now on the map, thanks to a new resource developed by Bristol Health Partners’ Bladder and Bowel Confidence Health Integration Team (BABCON HIT).

The Bladder and Bowel Service map shows where bladder and bowel service providers are in England. It lists locations, web links and contact details for both adults and children’s services. Users can also search for different types of service and services available regionally.

The map will be useful for:

• people who have bladder and bowel symptoms, and their carers, to find a service near to them;
• staff working in bladder and bowel services, to signpost other service providers and enable collaboration;
• researchers, to make connections more easily with bladder and bowel services, making collaborations more efficient;
• educators, who may wish to reach bladder and bowel services to share training opportunities or work together on other projects;
• anyone wishing to share outputs among the bladder and bowel service community that will help to inform how continence care is provided e.g. policy documents, research papers, project reports, good practice documents and guidelines.

Nikki Cotterill, Professor of Continence Care at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) and BABCON HIT Director, said:

“We developed the map to connect the bladder and bowel service community as, although details about individual service providers are available online, no overall list existed previously.

“We identified as many services as we could to put on the map. We made some helpful connections simply by locating these service providers, and we hope this resource will help in joining up the service community to advance care for people living with incontinence.”

Get your service on the map

While the map aims to be as up to date as possible, it is not a complete list of service providers and currently only covers England. If your service, or a service that you’re aware of, is not on the map and you’d like it to be included, please contact Professor Nikki Cotterill on [email protected]

Please also advise of any errors to help make this resource as useful as possible.

The map will be updated every year to reflect changes in service provision and ensure information is as reliable as possible. As such, if your service is listed, BABCON HIT will be in touch periodically to confirm current details.