The Society of Tissue Viability have welcomed this report and want to congratulate the NWCSP and the Pilot sites involved for all of their hard work on the lower limb wound implementation programme.

Prior to this work, we would all admit that lower limb wound care was sub optimal due to the unwarranted variation in care and the inadequate levels of wound care knowledge and skills across the health workforce. Patients suffered significantly because of this, many having to live with lower limb ulceration for many months and years.

The key findings from this evaluation brings hope – 45% of patients receiving assessment within 14 days, 52% of leg ulcers healed between 0 – 12 weeks rising to 69% at 24 weeks. 84 % of all lower limb wounds healed at 52 weeks and recurrence rate for leg ulcers only 14%. These are outstanding  results that demonstrate that by setting and implementing standards for clinical practice, ensuring the workforce is upskilled adequately and measuring the impact of implementation (collecting data), improvements on healing rates can be achieved.

The Society of Tissue Viability through its work with Legs Matter will continue to provide a voice for challenging sub optimal lower limb wound care and would urge anyone involved in this area of practice, whether this be directly or indirectly to take note of this evaluation report and benchmark their own metrics against those of the NWCSP. The results offer a clear pathway for replicating success in other areas of the UK who are delivering lower limb wound care.

The evidence is clear – we cannot ignore these findings! We would urge everyone to embrace this change and help make a difference to patients lives

Read the full report