LAUSR

A t the time of writing this editorial, we are waiting for the General Election to be held when future plans for health-care funding in the UK will be announced. By the time you read it, the result will be known. The Conservative party has stated that it will ensure real-term increases in NHS spending—an extra £8 billion per year by 2022/2023. In addition, it has promised to help the NHS provide exceptional care in all parts of England, making clinical outcomes more transparent so that clinicians and frontline staff can learn from the best units and practices. In tissue viability, we are already going a long way to achieving this through initiatives including React to Red, Stop Pressure Ulcer Days and Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN). Labour has pledged more than £30 billion in extra funding over the next Parliament; it also stated it will repeal the Health and Social Care Act and aim for integration of all health and social care services. All parties recognise the changing demographics of the UK with an ever-increasing ageing population. However, no party identifies skin integrity or tissue viability services or indeed recognises that tissue viability services span all aspects of clinical need. In this issue of the Journal of Wound Care (JWC) Julian Guest and colleagues (see page 292) report on the costs of managing wounds within a typical clinical commissioning group (CCG)/ health board. They predict £50 million per CCG/health board for managing wounds and associated comorbidities will be required by 2019/2020 if we do not increase the rate at which we heal wounds. On page 353, White et al. discuss the implications of this paper and the reasons they feel many wounds are not healed in a reasonable time. They state budgets are one reason and as we see from the Guest paper, unless we start to heal wounds quicker the strains on budgets will only get worse. Another cause identified by White et al. is lack of consistency in training. Indeed a recent letter,1 a response to it in this issue (see page 353) and an editorial2 have pointed out inconsistency in practice and poor treatment due to lack of training. Accessing education and training is essential if knowledge and skills are to be up-to-date; however, with clinical demands it can be difficult to secure time away. We are delighted that the Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention, University of Huddersfield, in collaboration with JWC and the National Institute for Health Research WoundTech Healthcare Technology Co-operative, is hosting the second International Skin Integrity conference on the 26–27 June. The conference recognises and celebrates the fact that tissue viability requires an interdisciplinary approach (including health professionals, microbiologists, biologists and engineers) to manage impaired skin integrity. We need to address inconsistency in treatment and learn from others to reduce the burden on both the health service and the patients and their families. As clinicians working in tissue viability, you must continue to research and produce evidence that promotes effective and timely interventions to maintain and improve quality of life outcomes. Finally, whoever is leading government, we have to make the importance of wound healing understood— if not, the financial and personal burdens will only increase!