Wound care
Dressed for success
When choosing the most appropriate treatment for chronic wounds, healthcare professionals need to consider a range of different factors, including the nature and severity of the wound, ease of changing and removing the dressing, risk of infection and patient preference. Allie Anderson speaks to Alison Schofield, tissue viability team lead and clinical nurse specialist at North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, about how clinicians can ensure they make the right decision.
hronic wounds represent a huge burden to patients who live with them, as well as a significant financial drain on healthcare systems. According to the most recent Burden of Wound Care study, which examines the prevalence of wounds in the UK and the cost to the NHS of treating them, the annual spend on wound management hit £8.3bn in 2017–18, a real-terms increase of 48% since 2012–13.
C
In England, the prescription costs of advanced and antimicrobial wound dressings in primary care alone exceeded £110m in 2015. However, not all advanced dressings are created equal: in some cases, a type of dressing might constitute a small proportion of
40
the total items supplied, but a far higher proportion of the total cost. Silver dressings are a case in point. They made up less than 10% of items prescribed but comprised more than 18% of the cost. Even so, wound care products themselves are just a small cog in a much larger wheel, accounting for as little as 12–15% of the financial burden of wound management. It’s clinical time that strains budgets, making up 80% of the total cost. Already, higher-priced dressings are most often used on wounds that are slow to heal, and spending a little more on products that make treatment and management more effective has the potential to save health services money and resources, as well as improving patient outcomes.
Practical Patient Care /
www.practical-patient-care.com
ST.art/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57
