On behalf of all IBD UK member organisations, we are delighted to announce the upcoming launch of our second UK-wide Service Survey for IBD services to self-assess their performance against the IBD Standards.

We last asked for your help in 2019, and an incredible 166 IBD services responded, which is 72% of all IBD services in the UK. This year, we want to hear from even more of you.

By completing the relevant survey for paediatrics or adults, you can tell us about your service, staffing levels, waiting times, diagnosis, flare management, surgery, inpatient care, and ongoing treatment and monitoring. This will help us to understand how well services are meeting the IBD Standards, and how we can support them to improve care and treatment for people with Crohn’s and Colitis so that everyone affected can have access to consistent, safe, high-quality personalised care, whatever their age and wherever they live in the UK.

This is more important than ever at a time when NHS services are under significant pressures, and having a clear picture of current IBD care in the UK, particularly in the recent post-Covid years, could help provide the evidence needed to push for greater investment into IBD services.

Once available, service leads will have access to their individual results and how they compare to the UK average, country specific average, experience of patients using the service, and the service’s previous results (if they took part in the 2019 benchmarking exercise).

Later in the year once the results have been analysed, we plan to enhance the support and resources we can offer to help services undertake continuous Quality Improvement.

Look out for more news about the survey launch in the summer and how you and your service can take part!