Excellence in Collaboration and Partnerships

Summary of work

The Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Registry was set up by the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) to collect long-term data from all UK IBD centres, alongside a successful national IBD Audit Programme run by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The Audit had driven significant improvements in services and patient outcomes, but in 2015 NHS England withdrew its funding, and recommended that the Audit and Registry merge.

The proposal was challenging: adapting the Registry to accommodate the Audit would cause delays to roll- out, and moving from annual snapshot audit to continuous point-of-care data collection was a significant culture change for hard-pressed clinical teams. Success depended on gastroenterologists being sufficiently convinced of the local value to them and their patients. With uptake below target, it became apparent that IBD clinicians were confused about the national plans.

The IBD Registry and BSG partnered with the RCP, Crohn’s and Colitis UK and four pharma companies to encourage participation through a targeted regional approach. The programme proved highly effective, resulting in 80 live sites by the end of 2016, and a successful transition from Audit to Registry.

Judges' comments

We absolutely loved the collaboration with this project. To pull together eight entities, all of which would have had different perceptions, in such an effective manner to deliver strong results is seriously impressive.