As a member of the BHTA, Sidhil wholeheartedly endorses the ‘Your Turn’ campaign, which is gaining momentum spurred on by the alarming statistics that pressure sores are currently estimated to affect one in five hospital patients in the UK, costing the NHS up to £4billion each year.
The BHTA’s Your Turn campaign is seeking to achieve mandatory reporting of incidents of pressure sores in the UK, in order to highlight the scale and severity of the problem.
Although pressure sores are inherently a visible and preventable issue, they are often viewed as a secondary issue to the patient’s primary condition. The NHS has also recently set out an ambition to eliminate all avoidable pressure ulcers in NHS-provided care.
Sidhil is one of the group of BHTA members involved in the voluntary funding of the Your Turn campaign, which is also run with the objective assistance of the Tissue Viability Nurses Association and The Wound Care Society.
Investing in technology – surfaces to combat pressure sores
The best way to avoid pressure sores is to keep moving, turning over or changing position as often as possible. However, there are both dynamic and static mattress systems that can help here, using technology to successfully alleviate pressure in areas most subject to ulceration.
Sidhil’s dynamic therapy mattress systems (such as the Trio, Plus and Solo) are designed to prevent the problems of pressure sores for vulnerable patients. The products work on the principal of moving areas on the mattress surface away from the body at regular intervals, thus stimulating blood-flow. These mattresses are made up of separate air-filled ‘cells’, which inflate and deflate in a regular pattern to vary pressure on the skin surface.
Heavier bariatric patients have an even higher risk, and suitable dynamic therapy systems (such as the Sidhil Bariatric Dynamic Mattress) are a major benefit for such users.
Sidhil’s range of static, multiple layered surfaces using different grades of visco elastic foam also provide successful pressure relieving therapy, considerably reducing the ‘shearing’ pressures that contribute to the formation of pressure ulcers. Non-bariatric patients can benefit from products such as the Acclaim VE and the Softrest VE, while for bariatric patients there is the Acclaim Bariatric VE.
Over the past five years, Sidhil has invested in a significant program of research, planning, testing and product development, which has resulted in the introduction of a range of surfaces designed to combat pressure sores.
Sidhil’s clinicians are now working with major Trusts around the country, in consultation with tissue viability nurses, ward managers, financial and purchasing professionals, community care-workers and moving and handling personnel, to further develop the product range. 2010 will see the introduction of a new generation of dynamic products developed to provide further ammunition in the fight against pressure sores.