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The BGS has been participating in the development of National Occupational Standards for Continence Care which are currently being developed by Skills for Health and Royal College of Nursing.

The representative on the Stakeholder group is Dr Adrian Wagg.

Skills for Health was established in April 2002 with support from the four UK health departments, the independent and voluntary health sectors and staff organisations, to become the Sector Skills Council for Health. Sector Skills Councils have a variety of responsibilities, one of which is to develop and maintain National Occupational Standards (NOS).

National Occupational Standards (NOS) describe good practice in the work place and may be used for competence based approaches to training, development and assessment. They are developed to be applicable across the four countries, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and must adhere to criteria laid down by the Accrediting Bodies.

The project is being jointly managed by RCN and Skills for Health, with lead responsibility resting with RCN. Funding is provided by an unconditional education grant from Coloplast Ltd.

Overall project timetable
The project will run through to end of December 2007. The project has already been through the development phase involving workshops and consultation with experts from the sector, and is now in its field testing phase. In addition, the draft National Occupational Standards are being made available to the health sector for evaluation and feedback. In this way there will be plenty of opportunities for experts and stakeholders to comment on the content.

Field Test (Sept - October 07)
The field test process is now underway and a total of 29 field test sites across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are involved. The field test involves working with, and using, the draft National Occupational Standards for purposes, such as job design, induction, recruitment, training and development, assessment and service development.

Each field test site has a lead person in place to manage the process at a local level. The sites are also supported by the project team. The arrangements for field testing are designed to suit what can be achieved at individual sites. In other words, the time commitment will largely depend on how the field test sites use the National Occupational Standards. This usually varies from site to site and can take from as little as 2 hours to 2 days work overall.

It is also hoped that the field testing exercise for this project will generate a number of case studies to support the implementation of the National Occupational Standards.

Keeping up to date with developments
A series of newsletters is produced for each project, at the key stages. One can also visit the Skills for Health website where draft materials and supporting information is available.

Provided by
Sue Thomas
RCN

During September the draft competences were presented to the national reference, strategy and project executive groups.

The competencies currently being field tested are :

CC01 Assess bladder and bowel dysfunction
CC02 Insert and secure urethral catheters
CC03 Monitor, and help individuals to self monitor, urethral catheters
CC04 Change, secure and monitor supra pubic catheters
CC05 Undertake a trial without catheter (TWOC)
CC06 Enable individuals to carry out intermittent self catheterisation
CC07 Undertake pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation for individuals with bladder and/or bowel dysfunction
CC08 Enable individuals to achieve social continence status using containment products
CC09 Assist individuals to effectively evacuate their bowels

Two further competences to be added at the end of September are
CC01a Asses voiding by use of portable ultrasound
CC10 Select an appropriate toileting programme for an individual using bladder charts

BGS Newsletter, October 2007
Issue 13 ISSN 1748-6343 13