Resources

Cristina Quinteiro describes the use of medical grade honey to achieve healing in an elderly patient with chronic leg wounds and complex poly-morbidity.

Febe Bruwer describes the effect of using Medical Grade honey on protease levels in a variety of patients with non-healing wounds.

The delivery of wound care in the current climate is challenging so effective solutions are more important than ever. It is vital that you are aware of the latest products and innovations that have the potential to improve outcomes.
 
Here, we present PolyMem^®, a unique multifunctional polymeric membrane dressing that is indicated for a wide range of acute, chronic and specialist painful wounds.

The delivery of wound care in the current climate is challenging so effective solutions are more important than ever. It is vital to be aware of the latest products and innovations that have the potential to improve outcomes.

Here, we present Exufiber^® and Exufiber^® Ag⁺, next generation gelling fibre dressings that use Hydrolock^® Technology to optimise wound conditions so that healing can occur.

Victoria Warner, reports on the use of an Online Non-Prescription Ordering Service (ONPOS) for wound dressing procurement in an acute trust for the first time. She describes how implementing the system has resulted in many benefits including increased efficiency and formulary compliance, and a reduced number of dressings purchased and used inappropriately, resulting in significant cost savings.

Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) are known to place a significant burden on healthcare services, with unhealed ulcers costing 135% more than their healed counterparts over the course of a year (Guest et al, 2016). This is a consequence of unwarranted variation in care attributed to difficulties experienced by non-specialist clinicians caring for VLU in the community. VLU healing rates are relatively unknown, and national targets for healing do not yet exist, but there is evidence in the literature that specialist VLU services improve healing rates (Moffatt et al, 1992). Healogics is a specialist third party provider of VLU and lymphoedema services to the NHS, that takes a systematic approach to the assessment and management of these co-existing conditions. This paper presents the healing rates of 1015 people with VLU treated by Healogics for the full 65-month duration of an any qualified provider (AQP) contract. Healing rates of 86.14% were obtained in an average of 117 days in line with the published healing rates from other specialist leg ulcer services (Moffatt et al, 1992; Edwards et al, 2005). The healing rates reported in this paper demonstrate that a consistent, specialist approach to VLU management that is underpinned by best practice and national guidelines can help to achieve timely healing in the majority of patients, and can identify more complex patients for whom healing is not possible, enabling them to be placed on a maintenance pathway. The authors’ suggest that grading of VLUs according to complexity and data collection and analysis of healing rates could help to improve healing outcomes on a national level.

The Woundcare Industry Group provide further comment on the Facebook Live Question Time event that was held to facilitate discussion amongst key stakeholders about the future of wound care in England.

A Facebook Live Question Time event was held in February 2020 to facilitate discussion among stakeholders of the future of wound care services in England, which is summarised here.

The delivery of wound care in the current climate is challenging so effective solutions are more important than ever. It is vital that you are aware of the latest products and innovations that have the potential to improve outcomes.
 
Kliniderm^® foam silicone is a gentle, conformable and comfortable dressing range, that can help to minimise pain at dressing change.
 

As a clinician, it is important that you are aware of the latest products and innovations that have the potential to improve outcomes for you and your patients. Each month, WCT will highlight a product that is new, improved or innovative in order to keep you up to date.