Article topics: Adjustable compression system, Cost savings, Juxta CURES, Patient concordance, UCS debridement cloth, Venous leg ulcers, Wound Care
Venous leg ulcers make up a large part of a district nurse’s caseload, with the application of compression bandaging requiring competent and skilled practitioners. At Central and North West London Foundation Trust (CNWL) Camden Integrated Primary Care (IPC) Service recruiting and retaining community nurses is a challenge, a situation which is shared across all London boroughs. In particular, it is difficult to maintain consistent standards for wound cleansing and compression bandaging, resulting in the responsibility for a large caseload falling to a small number of practitioners. Following a review of innovative products on show at the European Wound Management Association (EWMA) conference in May 2014, an alternative to traditional compression bandaging was identified as a possible solution to this problem; namely, UCS™ for effective debridement and Juxta CURES™ as an alternative to compression bandaging (both medi UK Ltd, Hereford). A total of 26 patients evaluated the products, which were found to be more clinically effective than previous regimens and also resulted in substantial cost savings.