The Ministry of Health – Manatū Hauora and Te Tāhū Hauora – Health Quality & Safety Commission have released two new consumer resources about managing stress urinary incontinence (SUI).
The ‘Understanding and managing urinary incontinence’ and ‘Surgery for stress urinary incontinence’ guides have been developed to support women to make decisions about their treatment options and will replace previous SUI resources.
The guides have been endorsed by the Surgical Mesh Roundtable (MRT), an oversight and monitoring group chaired by the Ministry which in August 2023 supported a pause in the use of surgical mesh for SUI.
Development of the guides was one of the four conditions of the lifting of the pause in the use of surgical mesh in the treatment of SUI.
The guides aim to provide detailed information about SUI and its management and were developed with input from health care professionals and consumers, including some with lived experience of stress urinary incontinence.
It’s the MRT’s expectation the guides will now be used by health care professionals when discussing with patients’ options in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence.
The guides provided clearer, more detailed information than had been previously available.
Spaces in the guides to note questions or concerns to raise with health care providers will allow patients to work with their health care team to make informed decisions about which treatment is best for them, or whether or not to undergo surgical treatment.
Download ‘Understanding and managing urinary incontinence’ and ‘Surgery for stress urinary incontinence’ from the Health New Zealand website.
