The health economic burden that acute and chronic wounds impose on an average clinical commissioning group/ health board in the UK

Abstract

This paper aims to estimate the patterns of care and related resource use attributable to managing acute and chronic wounds among a catchment population of a typical clinical commissioning group (CCG)/ health board and corresponding National Health Service (NHS) costs in the UK. This was a sub-analysis of a retrospective cohort analysis of the records of 2000 patients in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database. Patients’ characteristics, wound-related health outcomes and health-care resource use were quanti ed for an average CCG/health board with a catchment population of 250,000 adults ≥18 years of age, and the corresponding NHS cost of patient management was estimated at 2013/2014 prices. An average CCG/health board was estimated to be managing 11,200 wounds in 2012/2013. Of these, 40% were considered to be acute wounds, 48% chronic and 12% lacking any speci c diagnosis. The prevalence of acute, chronic and unspeci ed wounds was estimated to be growing at the rate of 9%, 12% and 13% per annum respectively. Our analysis indicated that the current rate of wound healing must increase by an average of at least 1% per annum across all wound types in order to slow down the increasing prevalence. Otherwise, an average CCG/health board is predicted to manage ~23,200 wounds per annum by 2019/2020 and is predicted to spend a discounted (the process of determining the present value of a payment that is to be received in the future) £50 million on managing these wounds and associated comorbidities. Real-world evidence highlights the substantial burden that acute and chronic wounds impose on an average CCG/health board. Strategies are required to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and healing rates. Declaration of interest: The study’s sponsors had no involvement in the study design, the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, the writing of this manuscript and the decision to submit this article for publication. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Department of Health, or any of the other sponsors.