Clinical interpretation of the NHS Clinical Evaluation Team Foam Dressings Report to support Wound Care Formulary review.

Wound healing is a dynamic and complex process, requiring an optimum environment to support wound repair, which can be influenced by the type of dressing used. With an increasing number of chronic wounds and increasing spend on the resources required to manage them (Guest et al, 2020), dressing selection remains an important aspect of wound care. For example, a dressing may be required that will manage exudate effectively but without detrimentally drying out the wound bed. With a plethora of different dressings in the same generic group being available it makes for difficult decisions when choosing products for wound formularies. Consideration has been given to this dilemma and had led to the setting up of a NHS Clinical Evaluation Team for consumables in healthcare. This paper describes the results of the local review conducted by the Skin Integrity Team at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals (DBTH) following the publication of the NHS Clinical Evaluation Team (CET 2018) clinical review of foam dressings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]