A Study to Determine User Acceptability and Laboratory Data Regarding Use of a Novel Indwelling Urinary Catheter: the Optitip Study

In this study, long-term catheter patients in the Community setting (both catheter clinic attenders or home catheter changes) will be invited to participate in a randomised cross-over study to compare their standard Foley catheter with the Optitip catheter. The participants will be randomised to Arm A (Standard Foley catheter then Optitip) or Arm B (Optitip then Standard Foley catheter) and will have each catheter inserted for successive periods of 4 weeks (+ up to 7 days). The catheters will be collected following removal and analysed for presence of biofilm; catheter specimens of urine will also be collected to measure detection/quantity microorganisms and cytokines. The quality of life of participants will be assessed at baseline and the end of each study period using a validated quality of life tool for long-term catheter users - the ICIQ-LTCqol.