Health economic burden that wounds impose on the National Health Service in the UK

To estimate the prevalence of wounds managed by the UK's National Health Service (NHS) in 2012/2013 and the annual levels of healthcare resource use attributable to their management and corresponding costs.

This was a retrospective cohort analysis of the records of patients in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) Database. Records of 1000 adult patients who had a wound in 2012/2013 (cases) were randomly selected and matched with 1000 patients with no history of a wound (controls). Patients' characteristics, wound-related health outcomes and all healthcare resource use were quantified and the total NHS cost of patient management was estimated at 2013/2014 prices.