Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

Noted a change in your bowel habit (frequency of bowel movements, blood with your stool, weight loss) and informed your GP?

If so, further tests such as a stool sample may have been requested and a referral into the hospital may have been recommended.

Your referral may be vetted by the Gastroenterology team or the Colorectal surgical team (this does not mean you need surgery at this point). Either team will then consider whether further investigations are needed. These could include a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy, which are examinations of your bowel with a small camera.

You have received an invite for bowel cancer screening. NHS bowel cancer screening are offered to screen for early signs of bowel cancer. It's available to everyone aged 60 to 74 years. The programme is expanding to make it available to everyone aged 50 to 59 years. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021.

You use a home test kit, called a faecal immunochemical test (FIT), to collect a small sample of poo and send it to a lab. This is checked for tiny amounts of blood.

If the test is positive the specialist team will contact you and recommend further investigations.

Either journey may identify IBD as the cause of your symptoms/test results therefore you will then be referred on to the Gastroenterology department and the IBD team.

You will receive an invite for a clinic appointment with the IBD nurses and the consultant gastroenterologist whose care you will be under. The appointment maybe telephone based or face to face. Please ensure you read the appointment letter carefully. If face to face, it can either be at Calderdale Royal Hospital or Acre Mill Outpatient departments.

If treatment is recommended, generally blood tests will be needed prior to starting and during the treatment period. These will be discussed with you by the IBD team, who will counsel you as to why they are needed.

The nursing team are here to support you through your disease journey. This will commence at diagnosis and continue thereafter.

Support and advice can be accessed when needed, whether this be during an acute flare of symptoms or for routine reviews.

When referred to the IBD team, you will be assigned a named consultant. They will be involved through out your disease journey and the IBD nursing staff will liaise with them regularly to ensure a consensus of care.

Depending on your disease type and location, IBD surveillance in the form of endoscopic assessments will be offered. The purpose of the surveillance program is to check for any changes within the large bowel that you may not have symptoms of, that could over time turn into cancer.