The first ever international Wounds Week was a resounding success

THIS year due to the pandemic the 8th International Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention Conference had to be redesigned. In its place arose an online international Wounds Week and it was so successful it is certainly going to happen again.

Wounds Week, hosted by the University of Huddersfield’s Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention in conjunction with the Journal of Wound Care, happened over five days, between 6pm and 7.30pm (UK time) and included a roster of multidisciplinary expert international speakers. They explored and investigated issues surrounding wound infection, identification, prevention and management of pressure.

With 10 engaging topics, Wounds Week was an opportunity for the wound care community to come together during an extremely difficult time due to the ongoing global pandemic and allowed them to engage in key education free of charge.

“Well done to Huddersfield Uni and all the brilliant staff. It is not always convenient to attend full study days so the online training is enough to keep you interested. I was very surprised to see people watching from TEXAS, HAWAII and USA – this must be very rewarding for you all.”

The opening session entitled ‘COVID-19: State of the Nation’ was by the new patron of the University’s Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention Dr Sarah Jarvis, MBE, a renowned Medical Broadcaster and Clinical Director at Patient.info.

Dr Jarvis cleared up numerous myths surrounding COVID and spoke about how well she feels the public and UK Government have handled the pandemic, how close we really are to finding a vaccine and whether or not she thinks the nation will see a second wave of infection as winter approaches.

Each session had live Q&A where participants asked questions of the experts which allowed the audience to feel connected to others taking part no matter their COVID-19 situation. All the webinars can now be viewed for free online via https://www.woundsweek.com/webinars-on-demand/.

The Director of the ISIaIP Professor Karen Ousey delivered a session on ‘Antimicrobial Stewardship – Is this important in a pandemic?’ where she discussed how COVID-19 has challenged all aspect of healthcare, including both recognition and management of serious acute bacterial infection and effective delivery of antimicrobial stewardship.

Professor Ousey was recently announced as being the new European Director of the International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) in recognition of her excellent research in the field of wound care.

The International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) was formed to raise international awareness of the prediction, assessment, prevention & management of skin tears. The panel includes healthcare professionals representing Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, North America and South America.

Dr Leanne Atkin, a senior lecturer and Vascular Nurse Consultant at the University of Huddersfield/Mid Yorks NHS Trust delivered a session on the Treatment of hard to heal wounds: Investigating international consensus documents (TIMERS and Wound Hygiene) – what does this mean to clinical practice?.

In a second session, Dr Atkin spoke alongside Phil Bowler, Vice-president of Science & Technology at Convatec who outlined the role of biofilm, how it develops and acts as a primary barrier to healing, followed by Dr Atkin who demonstrated the benefits of implementing wound hygiene into daily practice.

Additional sessions looked at Negative Pressure Wound Therapy, recent developments in Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Evidence-based prevention of surgical site infection, point-of-care biomarker testing and fluorescence imaging and diabetic foot ulcers.

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