Nurse in line for award over ulcer alert

A district nurse who developed an early warning system for pressure ulcers is in the running for a national award.

Carol Gill, who is based at Wilsden Health Centre and works for Bradford and Airedale Community Health Services (BACHS), is in the final three of a Royal College of Nursing (RCN) contest to find the UK's best nurse-led innovation.

The nurse beat over 300 other applicants to reach the final with her early warning system for pressure ulcers – a problem which costs the equivalent of 4p in every pound of NHS budget spend.

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Following an incident where some older patients with mental health problems developed severe pressure ulcers without nurses being alerted, Mrs Gill wanted to improve knowledge of pressure ulcer recognition among staff in care homes across Bradford.

She used her findings to develop an early warning system to identify and treat pressure ulcers before they get worse.

Mrs Gill identified that healthcare assistants, who mainly work in residential homes, lacked training in recognising early signs of pressure ulcers, which meant problems were often not reported until significant damage had been done and were more costly to treat.

Over 12 months, six care homes in a pilot programme saw a reduction in pressure ulcers by an average 25 per cent as the district nurse delivered training and educational sessions, and encouraged healthcare staff to use a reporting and recording tool she had developed.

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Mrs Gill said: "If we know about pressure ulcers developing we can address the problem before it gets worse. With the tools and time to develop, the potential for healthcare assistants to enhance patient care is huge. This is such a simple model but has huge potential for being replicated.

"It costs the NHS 2.4 billion each year to deal with pressure ulcers but the human cost is incalculable."