It remains a topic that is taboo, rarely discussed openly in public.

There is still a very real social stigma surrounding continence. The issue of incontinence is recognised to increase with age (DuBeau et al, 2009 Thirugnanasothy, 2010 Day et al, 2014), although it is not an inevitability of getting older (McGrother and Donaldson, 2005 Dongjuan and Kane, 2013 Goodman et al, 2013 Day et al, 2014).

Current estimates of the number of individuals in the UK who suffer from urinary incontinence are approximately 14 million, with a further six million estimated sufferers of faecal incontinence (Bladder and Bowel Foundation, 2015a 2015b Royal College of Nursing, 2019). Prevalence of bladder and bowel incontinence is increasing worldwide, in part due to an ageing population.