European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel

A challenging time for pressure ulcer prevention and treatment?

We are fast approaching the annual EPUAP Open Meeting this year to be held in Oxford from 30 August to 1 September 2007. It is exciting to return to Oxford where the first two EPUAP Open Meetings were held back in 1997 and 1998.

In 1997 we had 32 presentations (including 23 free papers) and seven poster presentations whereas ten years later the number of presentations and posters has increased to over 50 presentations (23 free papers and 35 posters). This increase in the volume of material marks the growth of our society and the enduring interest in pressure ulcers. However for many these are challenging times with health service budgets and staff under pressure with consequent effects upon attendances at conferences with reducing delegate numbers — thankfully these pressures have not seen a marked decline in interest for the EPUAP Open Meeting and the Business Office should be thanked for its efforts to promote the Oxford meeting and next year’s conference to be held in Bruges in Belgium. This issue of the EPUAP Review carries the first announcement of this event in 2008 and please enter the dates in your diary now!

What highlights should delegates in Oxford watch out for? News of the rapidly evolving new clinical practice guideline will be shared during the conference with considerable effort expended EPUAP byTrustees and Members over the past few months to achieve a review of all relevant publications upon pressure ulcer prevention. The work of the EPUAP Nutrition and pressure ulcers working group will be highlighted this year — this group have achieved a clinical practice guideline, a multi-national survey of nutritional practice as related to pressure ulcer prevention and management, two peer reviewed publications and at least two book chapters since coming into being in 2003. One of the recent publications from this group is reprinted in this issue of the EPUAP Review with thanks to the Journal of Wound Care. The nutrition group began to prepare for the multi-national survey by describing current pressure ulcer initiatives within the surveyed countries (Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and this issue of the Review contains the report on recent Dutch initiatives with other countries to follow in subsequent issues. To show that the work of the EPUAP moves quickly one further highlight for Oxford is not included on the formal programme as the initiative began after the programme was completed earlier this year — this initiative collected views upon potential changes in the current four stage pressure ulcer classification across Europe and the results will be presented for the first time in Oxford. So for a variety of reasons you should be in Oxford in late August and I look forward to welcoming you to the conference.

Michael Clark

Editor and EPUAP Recorder