Why is it important?
To help improve IBD services and provide the best possible care for patients, it’s important for the whole IBD team to work together. A culture of continuous improvement and having a lead for service development is vital for this to happen.
IBD teams should:
- Participate in local and national activities intended to improve quality
- Take an active part in clinical network arrangements
- Hold an annual review day to assess their service, looking at patient experience and clinical and patient-reported results
Patients and their family or carer(s) should also have a say in what happens, and be directly involved in the development of the IBD service.
Regular audits are the cornerstone of continuous improvement. These involve:
- Discussing all IBD mortality and submitting the results to national data collection
- Submitting the results of all emergency colectomy, ileoanal pouch (the ACPGBI Ileal Pouch Registry) and abdominal operations for Crohn’s Disease to national audit and data collection
- Registering IBD patients undergoing surgery in national databases to allow comparative audit of agreed key performance indicators – such as the nature, number and outcomes of surgeries performed – along with simple metrics on immediate and delayed complications, and referral for medical follow-up