EUROPEAN PRESSURE ULCER ADVISORY PANEL

The activity over the last year has continued to expand on the previous years work to reflect the Charity’s objective ‘to provide the relief of persons suffering from, or at risk of pressure ulcers in particular through research and education of the public’. The EPUAP Review, the charity’s journal has been published three times and the EPUAP website (www.epuap.org) has expanded. The dissemination of knowledge on the prevention and management of pressure ulcers is provided daily through our Business Office by supplying the EPUAP guidelines as well as forwarding questions from our website to relevant experts in the field.

Our very successful annual meeting was held in Budapest, Hungary in September 2002 with its theme: Pressure ulcers – a quality of care indicator? As in previous years the quality of the scientific programme was excellent as well as challenging. Preliminary results from the Pan European Pressure Ulcer Study were given by Christina Lindholm’s group and the new Dutch pressure ulcer guidelines were presented. The results of the EPUAP’s Prevalence Survey were also presented by Tom Defloor. The EPUAP subsidised a number of Eastern European medical professionals to attend the meeting and also to present their work to further our mission statement. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Professor J. Barbanel from Scotland a well known and stimulating figure in the field of pressure ulcers.

We were saddened at the death of a founding trustee and our first Recorder, Professor Gerry Bennett of London, who enriched the panel with his enthusiasm and expertise which contributed greatly to the success of our charity. He instituted a working party following last year’s annual meeting on nutrition and pressure ulcers which led to a major unconditional educational grant from Nutricia to develop guidelines on this important aspect of pressure ulcer management. The charity did recognise him last year in Budapest by acknowledging his contribution to the EPUAP. Following Gerry’s death Michael Clark assumed the chair of this working group and has since had two meetings which have resulted in the draft of preliminary nutritional guidelines. This draft will be presented at the Annual Meeting in Tampere in September 2003 for suggestions and criticisms from members of the EPUAP.

A Trustees Meeting weekend was held on March 22–23, 2003 with the majority of Trustees being present. The meeting was moderated by Keith Harding, the first President of EPUAP.

The purpose of the meeting was to make an action plan for the future growth of the EPUAP. Although the Open meeting in Budapest was a huge success it was thought that there was still a perception that the EPUAP was a closed society, despite having 350 paying members and it was decided that we needed to market the panel to increase both awareness of the public and funding. Four groups had been identified at a previous Trustees Brainstorming meeting in January 2002:

1. Administration – chair Jacqui Fletcher

The purpose of this group was to identify the means of streamlining the administration of the EPUAP and also to note the qualities of all present trustees. It was decided to keep an accurate register of all details related to trustees and that a criteria of entry as a trustee should be formulated. This has now been completed and will be presented at the next Annual General Meeting for ratification by members of the panel.

2. Education – chair Sue Bale

It was thought that much research had been undertaken by the panel in the past two years. Such as the prevalence, PEPUS and support surface studies, but education of the public now needed to be seriously addressed. Courses for patients, carers and health care workers were to be organised at three levels, simple, intermediate and advanced. It was suggested that a grading system with photographs should be put on the website to aid in the identification of classification of pressure ulcers. This has now been successfully initiated and CDs of this grading system will be distributed to all attendees at the September 2003 meeting in Tampere Finland. Collation of educational material from all European countries is also ongoing.

3. Activities – chair Michael Clark

This group is responsible for activities within the EPUAP and the setting up of venues for annual meetings. Lists of working groups are also collated by this group.

4. Profiling Chair – Gerry Bennett
(Christina Lindholm assumed the chair when Gerry Bennett became ill).

This group had not had a chance to meet and it was felt was completely dependent on other groups. We need to involve key members of the European Union and European Economic Community to again assist with publicity etc.

At the Trustees meeting in Oxford in March considerable discussion was led by Carol Dealey and Jacqui Fletcher on a document which they drew up suggesting new requirements to qualify as a trustee of the EPUAP. Initially when the panel was formed and made into a charity the founders thought it important to include trustees from the majority of the EEC countries in order to live up to the ‘European’ aspect of the charity’s name. The new document stresses the importance of expertise in pressure ulcers as a requirement for being a trustee. However, it could be argued that we should expand this to other individuals such as patients or people who have proven administrative abilities that would continue the success of the EPUAP. The changes for requirements to be a trustee will be discussed at our Annual General Meeting in Tampere Finland in September 2003 for ratification.

The EPUAP funded its President-elect Denis Colin to attend the meeting of our sister organisation NPUAP in New Orleans, USA.

George Cherry who had been contacted several times by the press for information on pressure ulcers and the late Gerry Bennet who was leader of the ‘Elder Abuse’ charity decided that more publicity was needed to highlight this huge problem in Europe. The results of our European prevalence study on pressure ulcers was given to the press by Michael Clark following press inquiries to the Business Office. This resulted in press and radio publicity.

In order to meet the mission statement regarding public awareness a special publicity meeting was held in Oxford in March to draw up plans on how to increase the awareness of pressure ulcers in UK as in other countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden this has already been addressed. We were fortunate again that Hilary Scott from the Complaints and Clinical Negligence Office for the NHS was able to be present and share her knowledge. In addition representatives from our corporate sponsors as well as specialised wound healing journals; The Journal of Wound care which was represented by the editor Deborah Glover, were present so that the EPUAP could utilise their professional experience.

Following this meeting all Members of the British Parliament have now been circulated with the results of the European Prevalence survey carried out by the EPUAP which indicates that one in five hospital patients may have pressure ulcers. The healing of these ulcers is costly and time consuming as well as giving the patient and in some cases his/her carers poor quality of life. We are in the process of circulating the European Parliament with these results. Early responses acknowledging receipt of this publicity information from British Members of Parliament including the Prime Minister have been received.

One of the major roles of the Secretary/Treasurer since the EPUAP has been founded has been that of raising funds for the charity. These have mainly come from our corporate sponsors, annual meeting support from Industry, delegates fees and subscription fees for membership. With regard to the latter, as previously stated we have more than 350 members whose renewal subscriptions and certificates of membership are processed through the Business Office. The success of this endeavour has come from the excellent support of the Business Office personnel, Jane Green and Christine Cherry. All of the EPUAP annual meetings have been organised through the Business Office. The revenues of these meetings are in the attached Charity Commission Report and accounts and because our financial year ends on June 30, so that the report can be circulated at the Annual General Meeting in September, the revenue from each meeting is carried over into the next financial year.

The EPUAP Business Office continues to be an essential part of the structure of the EPUAP. Subscriptions for membership, Industry subscriptions and mailing lists are all co-ordinated as well as mailings for meetings, publication of the EPUAP Review, collation of data regarding working groups etc. Queries from the web regarding patients are sent to relevant trustees to the nearest destination of the patient’s home. The annual meeting is arranged from within the business office. This includes obtaining the programme from the scientific committee, liaising with the Recorder with regards to speakers, organising satellite meetings and arranging travel for invited speakers. It also entails making site visits to the proposed venues for the meetings.

Next year the annual meeting will take place in Paris, France, 8–13 July 2004 as part of the 2nd World Union of Wound Healing Societies’ meeting. The EPUAP is one of the four co-hosting societies which enables us to obtain a portion of the revenues from that meeting. The EPUAP is playing a major part in the organisation of the scientific programme where it pertains to pressure ulceration.

The Trustees of the EPUAP are in the early stages of writing a book on the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers which is being led by our president Marco Romanelli.

In summary the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel continues to be successful in achieving its mission statement but still has considerable work to do as long as pressure ulcers continue to be a major economic and health problem.

This report has been prepared in accordance with special provisions of Part VII of the Companies Act 1985 relating to small companies.