EDITORIAL

Welcome to the first issue of the EPUAP Review for 2003! A great deal of EPUAP activity has been underway over the first few months of this year – among these lie the planning of the next Annual Meeting to be held in Tampere, Finland during 6–9 September 2003. Full details of the provisional programme of this event are given in this issue of the Review and EPUAP look forward to welcoming you to what should be yet another, successful conference!

In this issue we look back at Budapest 2002 and the 6th Open Meeting of the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel. Abstracts from this most enjoyable event are reproduced in this issue for the benefit of EPUAP members. For all those who were in Budapest the quality of the programme, the meeting surroundings and the social events leave the EPUAP Scientific Programme Committee and Business Office with a hard act to follow!

Over the remainder of 2003 the EPUAP Review will provide the first English translation of last year’s new pressure ulcer guidelines developed in the Netherlands. These new guidelines build upon existing documents such as EPUAP guidelines to provide both a comprehensive review of the available literature and a series of evidence-based recommendations. I look forward to making this new guideline and its supporting documentation available to the wider EPUAP membership.

What else has EPUAP been up to in the first few months of 2003? Following the award of an unrestricted educational grant from Nutricia, a new EPUAP guideline on nutrition and pressure ulcers is currently in development. This guideline will complement the existing EPUAP guideline on prevention and treatment and will be published in draft form in this publication in the early summer prior to debate during the Tampere conference.

The EPUAP is also pleased to be a major player in the forthcoming World Union of Wound Healing Societies conference planned for Paris in July 2004. This high profile event seeks to attract over 8000 delegates and marks a significant opportunity for national, European and worldwide wound care organisations to come together and discover new avenues for joint activity.

So the start of 2003 has been a busy time for the EPUAP and this level of activity looks set to continue during the remainder of the year. There is a lot to do – raising the political and public awareness of pressure ulcers, new research and educational activities, exciting meetings and new publications. Why don’t you become more actively involved? To this goal the next issue of the EPUAP will discuss the roles and responsibility of a EPUAP Trustee and how you could become involved with providing leadership to the EPUAP.

Michael Clark
Editor