With increasing health service cutbacks, cost-effectiveness is a central issue in many
wound care decisions. Community nurses face expanding case-loads and earlier
patient discharge into the community, with a range of conditions, which means that
cost-effective, practical, clinically-effective solutions are at a premium. Clinicians
are frequently required to justify clinical decision making in terms of health benefits
obtained and the cost to health service providers. However, few clinicians have the
skills to accurately interpret cost in more than local health economic terms, and the
disjointed structures that exist in healthcare provision mean that even those who
monitor health expenditure have little concept of the global cost of care provision.
This article focuses on the pressures placed on healthcare providers to achieve costeffectiveness
in care, specifically in relation to wound care.