IA's Liaison with Stoma Care Nursing 

This role seeks to have a voice in both the professional stoma care nursing arena and the patient support group, and to raise issues faced by the one group to the other in an attempt to keep both parties up to date with current issues and concerns.

The two nursing groups principally concerned with stoma care are the Royal College of Nursing Gastroenterology and Stoma Care Nursing Forum and the World Council of Enterostomal Therapists. These are special interest groups made up entirely of nurses.

Stoma care liaison can be a wide subject involving advising fellow trustees on the national executive committee on how to handle particular enquiries if they have a stoma care angle to them, researching, and writing or contributing to patient support literature. It also involves making regular reports to both RCN forum and WCET and, correspondingly, to the IA national executive and, most importantly, to the National Council meeting annually.

Essentially it is a conduit for information exchange between the two groups. Because of the nature of the post, it has to be occupied by a qualified stoma care nurse.