Nursing needs its leaders to respond to Francis
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We were responding to an international, multidisciplinary study which highlighted the need for all health professionals to receive a basic level of education about wounds in undergraduate and postgraduate education programmes.
On Twitter, nurses expressed concern about their knowledge and it is clear that there is a lack of confidence in dealing with the complexity of wound care.
Access to education for students was patchy and there was a telling comment about post registration education.
@CathyLamputt said “After doing the tissue viability module I was left thinking that no one should touch a wound that hadn’t done the course”.
Concerns were also raised about management of complex wounds.
@littlenurse1 commented “I wasn’t confident enough to make those decisions alone unless it was a basic wound, there were so many complex ones”.
In response to these concerns nursingtimes.net hosted a Clinical Chat on 27 September at 1pm to help answer your questions about chronic wound management. If you missed it you can reread the transcript here.
Participating in NT Clinical Chats can contribute to you CPD. How to get the most out of Clinical Chats:
- Look at the topic in advance of the chat and plan questions you would like to ask
- Participate in the chat by posting questions or comments
- Download the transcript after the chat as evidence of your participation. This will be available here after the webchat
- Write a reflection on what you have learned and how you could use this information in clinical practice, to store in your portfolio.
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Readers' comments (9)
jackie hill | 25-Sep-2012 4:21 pm
no we dont, or dont have the available dressings appropriate for the wound
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Anonymous | 27-Sep-2012 0:22 am
there are those that think they know all there is to know, however with the thinking on woundcare choices changing, the fashion on what works or doesn,t changes also, speaking to alot of old nurses that practised in the war and in the sixties, the way wound care was approached the was alot different. When i was an auxillary about 10-14 years ago i worked on a busy vascular surgery ward where wounds were continuous but i learned more then about wound care than i ever have since being qualified. Saying this though there are to many people that change wounds on wards that should not be doing this as they are not qualified to do so, so in that respect isn't that putting the patient at risk. Nurses are not given enough or any training where this skill is concerned and there very often is a link nurse with not enough experience or knowledge to assess wounds properly, so hurray for the specialists in wounds and their care around the country's hospitals
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Anonymous | 28-Sep-2012 12:32 pm
All nurses should obtain fundamental training in the different types of wounds, signs of infection, the difference between colonisation and infection, when to use which type of dressing, etc etc, Wound care is a very interesting and complex skill. And then you have leg ulcer management which is an area of expertise all by itself. I have fond memories of dressing some complex wounds - e.g. the lady with RA and diabetes with very hard to heal wounds. We did heal them though, with support from a specialist nurse. I remember using inadine with an alginate dressing and an occlusive covering. Before that, I would never have used the 2 together. By the way, I learned all this on the community (DN) team, not in the hospital setting.
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Anonymous | 29-Sep-2012 1:43 pm
I am honest enough to admit thatmy wound care knowlrdge is not very good. this is something I definately need to work on>
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Anonymous | 30-Sep-2012 4:46 pm
What's a wound?
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tinkerbell | 30-Sep-2012 7:42 pm
Anonymous | 30-Sep-2012 4:46 pm
wound is the past tense of wind.
Apologies, wound care is vitally important and i too need more knowledge in the matter but always ask my more learned colleagues for advice. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
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Anonymous | 2-Oct-2012 3:44 pm
No and no point, we only have one dressing to use anyway. Refer to district nurses or practice nurses whose lists are choc full and wounds go untreated. However I'm sure now Virgin and Serco are in control things will get better!!!!!
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Anonymous | 2-Oct-2012 4:15 pm
re wound dressings - we researched the whole market, narrowed our choices down to the ones we considered most suitable and then based our opinions on the products we found worked the best.
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Anonymous | 2-Oct-2012 5:38 pm
As a community tissue viability nurse I am amazed at the unecessary and inappropriate dressing combinations that are used, e.g. previous comment about inadine and alginate used together ...why? I am also concerned about the common usage of silver dressings and therefore rising costs. When we have student nurses out on community, I encourage staff to send them on our study days. There are fantastic free wound sites to learn from, e.g. Wounds, wounds international etc.
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