'Protect your birthday suit' public awareness week

As part of the Government’s ‘your skin matters’ campaign, Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will be raising awareness of conditions affecting the skin with an emphasis on the prevention and management of avoidable pressure ulcers during a week long campaign this month (21 – 25 November) aimed at patients, visitors and staff.

Now in its second year, ‘Protect your birthday suit’ is an awareness campaign, organised as part of the Strategic Health Authority’s ‘no needless skin breakdown workstream’ that aims to remind everyone that looking after your skin is as essential as other vital organs.

The Trust is uniting with NHS Berkshire in its approach to preventing and managing the issues around pressure ulcer damage, which affects patients both in hospital and in the community. ‘Protect your birthday suit’ aims to highlight that pressure ulcers are a major cause of sickness, reduced quality of life and morbidity for the public whether in hospital or at home, but that there are a number of ways they can be prevented.

This years’ awareness week includes a two-day conference for staff, covering pressure ulcer prevention and management, wound infection, nutrition and hydration and continence care. There will also be a series of patient awareness stands at Wexham Park Hospital providing advice and education to the public each day.

Jacqueline Warner, advanced nurse practitioner for tissue viability at the Trust, said: “Our aim is to eliminate needless skin breakdown for patients. It is vital that we take time to educate people about what they can do to prevent skin breakdown and to help them realise the risk to themselves, their friends and relatives”.

The Trust is at the forefront of improving the occurrence of pressure ulcers in the region and has been focusing on the programme for the last three years.

“Our dedicated team, along with the support of all our colleagues, has been working very hard to increase the reporting of pressure ulcers, decrease the percentage of more serious ulcers and achieve a 30% overall reduction in pressure ulcer incidence within the Trust”, continues Jacqueline.

The Trust has recently introduced a new ‘SKIN bundle’ to help improve the health and wellbeing of patients, which is a set of key indicators that help staff to reduce the impact of pressure ulcers, or eliminate their occurrence completely. SKIN focuses on:

• Surface - ensuring the surface is appropriate and comfortable
• Keep moving - regularly turning patients to alleviate pressure and contact
• Inspect and protect - monitoring affected areas, managing continence and appropriately dressing/ treating them
• Nutrition - considering diet to ensure it is the best for recovery

Supporting these simple steps are a number of other initiatives that help staff to care for patients who are susceptible to pressure ulcers, including patient information leaflets and the PTO prompt card which reminds staff to regularly reposition patients (please turn (the patient) over) and a patient at risk alert card which aids those who are likely to develop an ulcer.

“Simple exercises and dietary advice combined with moving and handling tips for carers are great ways of reducing the risk to patients. The team does a fantastic job and we’re excited to be able to spend the week focusing on what we do well and sharing it with the rest of the Trust and the public”, adds Jacqueline.