Aims and objectives: A formalised systematic nurse led clinical treatment pathway has been developed and implemented to enhance an area of suboptimal service delivery for patients who develop LARS. The successful outcome of having a designated nurse led clinic has enabled comprehensive robust management of this patient group thus aligning care standards to support the transition into Survivorship (DOH, 2010, DOH et al 2013. This in turn addresses the long term effects of cancer treatments so that patients quality of life can be optimised. Method: A work based MSc project was undertaken by the lead author and a planned change management model developed by Kotter (1996) was emulated to platform the change into practice. A review of the literature was undertaken to locate all available published evidence on LARS so that the clinical treatment pathway reflected best evidence based practice. A gap analysis in the published literature on formalised assessment for patients who develop LARS allowed the author's original ideas to be explored and implemented. Standard patient satisfaction questionnaires were used to evaluate the patient experience in the clinics. Results: The development of a structured clinical treatment pathway used in conjunction with a validated LARS scoring tool has enabled early identification of patients who develop symptoms of LARS. This has prompted early assessment and intervention so that patients who have this bowel dysfunction as a consequence of cancer treatments can be supported to manage their symptoms and adapt to a new normal following rectal cancer surgery.
NS3No abstract available.
NS4Parastomal Hernia: providing evidence for consistency in care and management W. Osborne Association of Stoma Care Nurses, UKThe prevalence of parastomal herniation is consistently documented as a common complication for individuals undergoing stoma formation (1,2,3,4) . This can result in distressing physical, psychological and management challenges for the individual with a stoma.For Stoma Care Nurses (SCN), despite the plethora of compounding issues encountered daily with their patients; there is a huge disparity in the provision of information in relation to prevention and management of parastomal hernias (5) . A project group of specialist nurses undertook a significant investigation into parastomal hernia prevention and management. Their intention was to review current literature, align and develop evidenced based guidelines and ultimately identify practice that would reduce the development of hernia's. Following a comprehensive literature review, master classes, involvement of colorectal surgeons, patients and physiotherapists: clinical guidelines were produced and disseminated nationally in 2016 (6) . The extensively peer reviewed guidelines include succinct advice for pre, post and long term follow up care. Information includes core exercises, underwear advice, quality of life assessment and referral criteria to compliment the guidelines.Further work by the project group is being undertaken into...