A postal survey of continence advisers in England and Wales

Improved continence services have been identified as a purchasing priority for 1994-1995. A key figure in the continence team is the nurse continence adviser. However, although the Association for Continence Advice in the United Kingdom offers a set of guidelines for the role of continence adviser, the extent to which these were implemented across the country was unknown. In 1991, the Department of Health commissioned the Social Policy Research Unit of the University of York, England, to carry out a postal survey of all known continence advisers in England and Wales in order to provide basic quantitative information about the number of advisers in post, their professional qualifications, the structures in which they worked, and the nature of current practice. In this paper a brief resumé of some of the main findings from the survey, which included both quantitative and qualitative data, is presented. The role of the continence adviser as a clinical nurse specialist and some of the implications for current practice are also discussed.