Wounds Research for Patient Benefit

funded by the

What?

• National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) granted a £ 1.75 Million Programme Grant for Applied Research to NHS Leeds and the University of York so that we can better understand and treat people with complex wounds

What are complex wounds?

• Wounds which involve superficial, partial or full thickness skin loss, which are healing by secondary intention

• They are wounds with an underlying cause or which occur in patients where underlying disease may impact upon healing eg, pressure ulcers, leg ulcers and dehisced surgical wounds

Yorkshire and Humber SHA Tissue Viability Nurses (2007)

Why Complex Wounds?

• 35,889 wound care related nursing visits over 6 months October to March 08-09

• Community nurse prescribing of wound care products in Leeds PCT 08-09 was £776,312

Why Leeds?

• Large, diverse population in terms of ethnicity and socio economic distribution

• Trust boundaries encompass urban, suburban and rural communities

• Research is embedded in the culture of nursing within Leeds

WORKSTREAM 1 WORKSTREAM 2 WORKSTREAM 3

who?

what?

where?

how?

which?

which outcomes matter?

non-randomised studies?

what does existing research tell us?

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Who? What? Where? How? Which?

• Prevalence survey and audit spring 2010 including hard-to-reach people

• Feasibility of a “live” register of people with complex wounds

• Pilot testing

Which outcomes matter?

• Interview groups of patients, nurses and podiatrists, managers

• Methodological research to see whether non randomised data can be used instead of clinical trials

Non-randomised studies?

What does existing research tell us?

• Find out which questions are most important

• Use new methods of putting existing evidence together to find out if answers are already “out there” eg., dressings for diabetic foot ulcers, silver dressings for VLUs

Purpose of today

• Inform you of the research

• Involve you in the programme

• Include your ideas to answer outstanding clinical questions around chronic wound care

• Publicise this research event

• To involve patients and carers in the research

www.york.ac.uk/healthsciences/research/woundsprogramme.htm