Following the initial part of her career in Renal, Transplantation and Intensive Care across the UK and Australia, Carol moved into Primary Care nursing in the Scottish Borders in 2001. Here she developed her passion for Tissue Viability, in particular for promoting best practice in the management of leg ulcers. After a Tissue Viability role in NHS Borders Carol moved to NHS Lothian 5 years ago where she now is lucky enough to have a dynamic role where she supports staff with patients in their homes, Health Centres, Care Homes, Community Hospitals and Acute hospitals.

She enjoys training the next generation of Nurses about leg Ulcer Management both in NHS Lothian and as a member of leg Ulcer Forum Scotland.

She is aware of the differences in care delivery across Scotland for leg ulcers and would love to see a National Programme including tools and education to support unified, best practice management.

Presentation at The Society of Tissue Viability 2022 Conference

How effective is virtual wound care education? Using a Matrix to measure the success of wound care education

Objectives

After attending this session, persons will be able to:

• Recognise current situation in leg ulcer provision
• Have an understanding of the gaps in education
• Reflect on different methods of delivering education
• Understand the challenges and opportunities of online teaching

Abstract

It is estimated the annual cost of treating patients with leg ulcers in the UK to be £1.94 billion (Guest et al (2018). Using a different methodology, Phillips et al (2020) reported similar costs. They broke the costs down to individuals and found an average of approximately £7706 was spent each patient per annum.  In papers went on to suggest there is increasing evidence of sub optimal service delivery in wound care which is not based on the notion of best practice.

Guest et al (2018) identified that only 16% of patients with leg ulceration had an ABPI recorded in their notes.  Accessibility to good quality education of nurses who care for patients with leg ulcers varies throughout the UK.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on vascular and venous disease examined the current situation and their recommendations included

• Ensure all NHS organisations are providing appropriate training and education on venous leg ulcers.
• Conduct a workforce review of NHS staff to ensure the appropriate work force is in place vvappg.com

In this presentation we will discuss provision of education on leg ulcer assessment and management education in 2 settings: a specialist clinical staff in the community and a higher education institute in Scotland.  We will highlight the challenges and opportunities of educating staff during a pandemic.

The session concludes by discussing how we are developing our measurement of the effectiveness of this education ensuring that it is both fit for purpose and constantly improving.

References

1. Guest JF, Fuller GW, Vowden P (2018) Venous leg ulcer management in clinical practice in the UK: costs and outcomes.  Int Wound Journal 15(1)29-37
2. Phililips C, Humphrey I, Thayer D et al (2020) Cost of managing patients with venous leg ulcers. Int Wounds Journal 17(4) 1074-1082