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
- Create opportunities for shared education and upskilling
- Ensure that development plans are in place, which are well supported and resourced for all members of the IBD team
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. However, we know from the 2023 IBD UK Benchmarking that 82% of adults reported not having the opportunity to give feedback about their care in the last 12 months. This represents a significant missed opportunity for these IBD services to better understand the needs of those under their care
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
- Utilisation, supply and monitoring of biologics and small molecule—this can be done in collaboration with commissioning bodies.
Audits are crucial, as they allow healthcare providers to evaluate how well they are adhering to clinical guidelines, as well as identify areas of improvement for processes and outcomes. In the most recent IBD UK Benchmarking, 41% of services disagreed that audits of different aspects of the IBD service were carried out at least annually. More than half of participating services disagreed that there was an audit plan and cycle in operation, with formal reporting of outcomes and service improvement actions.