EDITORIAL

I had been looking forward to writing this introduction to the issue of the EPUAP Review that is distributed at the time of our Annual Open Meeting. There is always something pleasing about being able to welcome EPUAP members and those (hopefully) soon to be members to the conference. However, this year sees EPUAP approach the Tampere conference in sombre mood. The recent death of Gerry Bennett, our first Recorder has been a great shock to the EPUAP ‘family’ members. Gerry’s contribution to the development of EPUAP was immense – as our first Recorder he was responsible to the scientific programme at the seminal EPUAP conferences. As his successor in the post of Recorder, I was personally grateful for his advice and support during the Budapest conference last year. However, Gerry did much more than organise the conference programme, this issue of the EPUAP Review contains the draft text of a new EPUAP guideline on the role of nutrition in pressure ulcer prevention and treatment. This project was instigated by Gerry Bennett last year during the Budapest conference and he was responsible for bringing together the team that worked on the guideline text. I hope that the material we developed reflects Gerry’s enthusiasm for understanding pressure ulceration, while all members of the guideline group would like to thank him for his comments upon the various drafts we produced. The EPUAP has lost one of its strongest supporters, we will miss him for Gerry helped to build EPUAP into today’s vibrant organization. Looking ahead from this sombre time, we must continue to develop EPUAP and strengthen its influence. A growing, respected and influential EPUAP would indeed be a fitting tribute.

This issue of the EPUAP Review also contains the first section from the recent pressure ulcer guidelines published in the Netherlands last year. This is the first part of an on-going series of articles that set out the content of this important evidence-based guideline. EPUAP became aware of this guideline through our members from the Netherlands, it would be excellent if EPUAP could develop a library of pressure ulcer guidelines from across Europe. Could I ask members to send the EPUAP Business Office copies of national pressure ulcer guidelines or links to web sites where the documents could be accessed.

Looking forward to seeing you in Tampere.

Michael Clark
Editor