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Director General, AHPMA (Absorbent Hygiene Manufacturers Association)

Tracy Stewart is Director General of AHPMA, the UK industry association representing the absorbent continence care, feminine hygiene and disposable diaper industries. She joined the organisation in 2000 as a communications professional, and became Director General in 2005. Tracy is currently also representing EDANA on wet wipes communications in the UK. In 2006 she coordinated a group of continence professionals and together they began a campaign to promote the value of continence care, this led to the development of a Parliamentary Group on continence, to which she has provided secretariat since its inauguration in 2009. Tracy represents AHPMA as a member of the National Health Service (NHS) Medical Supplier Board on healthcare procurement, and she oversees the running of a health information service on Toxic Shock Syndrome (www.TSSIS.com) on behalf of its medical panel and funders.

Challenges, Strategies and Successes for Continence Care in the UK

In the UK, continence is a severely under-valued area of healthcare without specific mandatory requirements for service provision, or nurse and carer education and training.  The challenge is to promote the value of quality, equitable continence care services for all ages, and to see the inclusion of bladder, bowel and continence training in the pre-registration curriculum for nurses and training programmes for care staff.  The All Party Parliamentary Group for Continence Care, and the overarching health commissioning body, NHS England, as well as numerous other UK groups and charities have developed strategies to raise awareness and understanding of this important area of health and to encourage and enable these areas to be effectively addressed.