Powering progress in wound healing
Where each patient interaction is a chance to move healing forward.
More than 1 in 5 wounds result in hospital admission¹
Non healing wounds are one of the NHS’s largest hidden burdens—affecting millions, driving avoidable hospital admissions, and consuming extensive community nursing capacity.1
Yet despite 8 years of data, outcomes have not improved, and over 40% of wounds remain non healing or deteriorating, placing patients at significant and preventable risk.1
Drawing on 19,472 wounds from 166+ community centres (2017–2025), a new report presents the largest wound care dataset of its kind.1
Confidence to change chronic wound care
Professor Sebastian Probst and Dr Leanne Atkin, along with colleagues from the global council of Applied Wound Management, have published a series in Wounds International to help clinicians navigate this complexity and build clinical confidence.
As patient populations age, comorbidities multiply, and wounds become increasingly complex, clinicians face uncertainty about how best to manage chronic wounds.2
Barriers facing care teams, from resource constraints to fragmented pathways, can make it challenging to provide consistent, high-quality wound care.3
What does progress really mean in wound healing?
The ultimate goal is to achieve complete wound healing, but with chronic and complex wounds this process is not always linear.
On average leg ulcers can last up to 12-13 months4, so improving the daily impact of living with a chronic wound can be significant. Even when healing is going as expected, there might be an opportunity for progress around patient pain, independence, or quality of life.
In normal healing, it is expected that after four weeks, a wound should either have reached re-epithelialisation, or at least seen a 40% reduction in size.5
When a wound fails to follow this trajectory, it’s time to reassess. Every patient interaction is an opportunity for wound healing progress, so when a wound healing journey is slow, or the wound stalls, we can still make progress across patient care, whether that’s improved quality of life, or advanced therapies to reactivate healing.
Progress in practice
A holistic approach to wound care is multi-faceted, calling on us to consider the wound aetiology, local site management, biological barriers to healing, and patient lifestyle factor.5 A reported one in four wounds assessed in the UK lack a differential diagnosis, making it more important than ever to be able understand and characterise different wounds, to ensure patients are receiving optimal care.5
Join Jacqui Fletcher, OBE, Clinical Lead Tissue Viability NHS England for her 25-minute course on how to differentiate and manage:
• Pressure Injuries
Also available:
• Arterial Leg Ulcers (ALU)
• Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFU)
• Venous Leg Ulcers (VLU)
How are you powering progress?
Each patient interaction is a chance to move healing forward. By sharing experiences, measuring your impact, and applying evidence-based practice to optimise outcomes, we can make progress together.
With clinicians insight from across the wound care community, we surveyed more than 700 patients in Europe, and over 19,000 in the UK, Ireland & Nordics. We asked about their wound care experiences; the wins, the challengers and the motivations.
References
1.Wood K, Ahmad N, Woods G, Shoker H, Hughes J. Invisible patients, unsustainable practice: insights from 20 000 wounds to drive solutions across integrated care systems. British Journal of Healthcare Management. 2026. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjhc.2026.0005
2.Burden of Wound Care: What does it mean for clinicians? Wounds UK. Published online 2021.
3.Atkin L PS. Clinical Inertia in Chronic Wound Care.; 2025.
4.Frykberg RG, Banks J. Challenges in the Treatment of Chronic Wounds. Adv Wound Care (New Rochelle). 2015;4(9):560-582. doi:10.1089/wound.2015.0635
5.Best Practice: Active treatment of Non-Healing Wounds in The.; 2022. www.wounds-uk.com
6.The Nursery. Patient Research Data Table. Self-Care Approaches to Patient Wound Care and the Impact of Covid-19.; 2020.
7.Guest JF, Fuller GW, Vowden P. Cohort study evaluating the burden of wounds to the UK’s National Health Service in 2017/2018: Update from 2012/2013. BMJ Open. 2020;10(12). doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045253
2.Burden of Wound Care: What does it mean for clinicians? Wounds UK. Published online 2021.
3.Atkin L PS. Clinical Inertia in Chronic Wound Care.; 2025.
4.Frykberg RG, Banks J. Challenges in the Treatment of Chronic Wounds. Adv Wound Care (New Rochelle). 2015;4(9):560-582. doi:10.1089/wound.2015.0635
5.Best Practice: Active treatment of Non-Healing Wounds in The.; 2022. www.wounds-uk.com
6.The Nursery. Patient Research Data Table. Self-Care Approaches to Patient Wound Care and the Impact of Covid-19.; 2020.
7.Guest JF, Fuller GW, Vowden P. Cohort study evaluating the burden of wounds to the UK’s National Health Service in 2017/2018: Update from 2012/2013. BMJ Open. 2020;10(12). doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045253
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