Heidi has been a Tissue Viability Nurse since 2002. Her interest and passion in the prevention and management of pressure ulcers began, however, in 1987 on registering as a nurse.

She has worked in both acute and community care. She is currently the part time Tissue Viability Services Lead for Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust and has a private consultancy. This service includes a tissue viability team, a specialist leg ulcer team and a lymphoedema specialist service. She is currently the Pressure Ulcer Metrics Lead for the National Wound Care Strategy Programme’s PU Group. She is a Past Chair of the Tissue Viability Society and an honorary lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. She is excited to be working with the Tissue Viability Society as their Skin Care Champions Educator.

Her passions centre around education, improving services for patients and team development. She is published under the names of both Guy and Sandoz.

Presentation at The Society of Tissue Viability 2022 Conference

The Skin Care Champion Project: Igniting the potential for great skin care in the social care sector

Objectives

After attending this session, persons will be able to:

• An awareness of the skin care champion programme
• An understanding of the benefits of such a programme
• An understanding of some of the challenges
• An overview of how such a programme can be delivered with limited resource
• The necessary knowledge to promote the programme locally

Abstract

Accessing education for those working in home care and care homes can be challenging. The Society of Tissue Viability wanted to address this gap by providing a trusted programme of cost-effective and easily accessible education that will ensure those care provider organisations who subscribe will have a skin Care Champion who can help to make sure that excellent care is provided to their clients and residents.

They can also be recognised by their peers as a source of information and knowledge. The Society of Tissue Viability, following some fund raising and the award of the Urgo Foundation are funding a Skin Care Champions Programme by utilising an educator to deliver the education.

This session will provide an overview of how this is being achieved using a virtual platform only, the topics being explored within the programme as well as how the outcomes of this programme are being attempted to be measured.