An estimated 3.8 million people in England are affected by wounds each year, at an annual cost of £8.3 billion to the NHS, making wound care the third-highest area of healthcare spend after cancer and diabetes. Consequentially, most existing research comes from healthcare settings rather than social care. However, we know that it’s social care where a significant amount of wound care takes place.
Our white paper, From Treatment to Prevention, addresses this gap in research. Using anonymised records from more than 26,000 people cared for in care homes through Nourish Better Care, the research establishes a first baseline for wound care in UK social care.
Social care research
The initial findings speak to the prevalence of the challenges care providers face. 24% of people in care homes have at least one wound. Additionally, there were 462 wounds for every 1,000 people, showing that many people are living with multiple wounds.
But the report is more than a measure of prevalence. It also explores how digital records can help providers turn everyday care information into oversight and practical action. Across participating services, the overall direction was positive, with improvements in wound rates and duration, with 75% of wounds were resolved in under four weeks.
A bigger picture of social care
Data alone does not improve outcomes. Skilled care, timely assessment, effective clinical partnerships and an understanding of the individual remain essential. What good-quality data can do is make the bigger picture visible. Helping teams identify trends, review waiting times, understand which wounds require most attention and consider where prevention or earlier escalation could make a difference.
For providers, a shared baseline offers the opportunity to stop treating common challenges as isolated ones. It can support learning within and between services, strengthen conversations with health partners and give social care a clearer evidence base of its own.
A strong social care sector to support the key shifts
A strong social care sector is essential to the NHS’s ambitions for prevention, integration and care closer to home. To strengthen it, we first need to understand the reality of care in our communities.
At Nourish we are committed to social care research to help improve our understanding of the lived experiences of people utilising services, and how we can continue to improve them effectively.
Read From Treatment to Prevention to explore the full findings.
We are also proud to work with The Outstanding Society‘s social care research initiative Vivaldi. Through Vivaldi they have utilised the connections and community of The Outstanding Society to produce policy shaping research for social care. At Nourish Care we are proud to support this research and help move care conversations forward, sharing anonymised user data to inform the work of Vivaldi.
