Surgical Wound Complications – how to approach quality improvement

The frequency and complexity of surgical wound complications are often under-estimated but surgical wounds are the most managed wound type (57%).Surgical wound complications are estimated to cost £982.9 million per year. Reducing surgical wound complications could have a significant financial impact on NHS costs. However, we lack accurate information about the scale of the problem. Most surgical wound complications (SWC’s) occur post discharge, but national surgical data collection ends on hospital discharge.

This presentation will therefore look at a range of strategies to try and improve the prevention of SWC’s including educational resources, updating the recommendations, patient resources, improvement in clinical data.

Jacky Edwards, Clinical Lead for Surgical Wound Complications, Lead for Education and Workforce, National Wound Care Strategy