A survey of wound care provision within one English health care district

Abstract 

Wound healing remains a largely overlooked area despite the perceived large numbers of people with wounds and the high costs of treatment. The lack of visibility for wounds and wound healing may in part stem from the fragmented nature of the available data on wound occurrence often limited to descriptions of specific wound types within single care settings. A survey was undertaken across all care providers serving the population of Bradford, UK to identify the number of people with wounds, the characteristics of their wounds and the allocated interventions used to prevent and heal wounds. In March 2007, 1735 completed questionnaires were returned each marking the most severe wound experienced by a patient. The overall prevalence of wounds was 3.55 people with wounds per 1000 population (prevalence 0.355% 95% CI 0.33–0.37%). Almost one third (n=556) of the people with wounds were located in acute care settings with the remainder spread across several community locations including residential and nursing homes. The most prevalent forms of wound were acute wounds (n=826) followed by leg ulcers (n=482) and pressure ulcers (n=363). A previous survey with broadly similar methodology had shown a lower prevalence of wounds (0.279% 95% CI 0.26–0.29%) with this difference perhaps explained by different data collection methodologies within the nursing home sector that resulted in a 100% return compared with 50% in the earlier survey.

Keywords: Prevalence, Audit, Wounds, Service provision, Care setting