Services at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT) are always looking at how they can help people to better look after their own health, whether this is advising on lifestyle choices or helping people to manage long term conditions.
To this end, the trust is working on a wound care app, so patients who download this on their own phones, can send images directly to clinicians, who can then give advice on wound progress and monitor healing.
Often patients are able to look after a wound themselves, without the need to travel to a specialist centre or the need for a nurse to visit. Working in this way not only provides patients with information and advice to manage their own health needs, where possible, but also supports our nurses and other health care professionals to care for those who really need their skill and expertise.
Towards the end of 2020, the trust was chosen as one of just five sites in the country to take part in the National Wound Care Strategy Programme, which aims to make improvements for wound patients.
Clinical Lead Nurse Charlotte Weare, from KCHFT's Whitstable and Faversham community nursing teams, said: “I think patients will like being able to download Wound Matrix on their own phones, so they can see their progress, look at the advice we have given them and have some independence and control over their own health.”
This work is at a very early stage and the app is not yet available, but do keep an eye on the trust's quality improvement (QI) website for further updates, which can be found here: https://qi.kentcht.nhs.uk/