Hospital monitoring of pressure ulcers in the UK

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Nursing Research
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Increasing expectation for hospitals to report pressure ulcer (PU) incidence.
• Lack of standardized methodologies and understanding of current PU monitoring practices.
• Need for systematic pressure ulcer audits in healthcare settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a national overview of pressure ulcer assessment and audit practices in UK acute hospital trusts.
• To identify variations in pressure ulcer monitoring and data collation methods.
• To inform the development of standardized auditing protocols.

Main Methods:

• A postal survey was distributed to 276 acute hospital trusts in the UK.
• A response rate of 74% (204 trusts) was achieved.
• Data collected on staffing (e.g., tissue viability nurses), assessment tools, grading scales, risk assessment frequency, and monitoring returns.

Main Results:

• Only 40% of trusts employed a dedicated tissue viability nurse; 28.5% had other clinical nurse specialists.
• Most hospitals utilized single scales for PU grading and risk assessment, with considerable variation in survey frequency and methodology.
• Low frequency of daily PU monitoring (5%), with weekly (30%) and monthly (22%) returns being more common.

Conclusions:

• Significant national variations exist in pressure ulcer assessment tools, audit data provision, and data collation methodologies.
• Current practices for pressure ulcer auditing lack uniformity across UK hospitals.
• A national consensus on pressure ulcer auditing is recommended to improve consistency and data reliability.