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

OBJECTIVE: 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.

METHOD: 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 quantified 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.

RESULTS: 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 specific diagnosis. The prevalence of acute, chronic and unspecified 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.

CONCLUSION: 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.