YOUR DONATIONS IN ACTION! Wound Leg Training Equipment

The Tissue Viability team in Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital have recently received new wound leg training equipment thanks to the work and fundraising efforts of the Hampshire Medical Fund.

Tissue Viability is a specialist service made-up of nurses that give advice to the ward staff on managing complex wounds, how best to aid healing, and to make patients comfortable whilst they’re in hospital. This can involve visiting the ward to perform wound care, cleaning the wound, vacuum dressing, and  putting together an advisory care plan for the ward to follow.

This new training equipment gives a visual of the wounds on a person’s leg, with each leg a certain aetiology of wounds. The arterial leg shows the typical presentation of arterial wounds, and the Venus leg shows the typical presentation of Venus ulcers or a Venus insufficiency leg.
These are really useful for staff to see what these wounds could look and feel like, and helps them during training days. Staff feedback have stated that they have found these dummy legs to be extremely helpful.

When asked how she feels about the Hampshire Medical Fund’s involvement in the purchase of this equipment, Lead Tissue Viability Nurse, Cerys Stowe said that:

“Budgets typically cover staff pay, dressings, and stationary but we don’t have anything in there for training equipment. It was quite a straightforward process of applying for funding through the Hampshire Medical Fund and everyone was really helpful. This is the first time in this service that we’ve had something so exciting as these dummy legs for staff.”

When asked how she had heard about the Hampshire Medical Fund, Cerys told us:

“Working at the Trust you see the branding quite a lot, and through social media I’ve seen posts of other departments that have got successful bids celebrating what they’ve received from the charity. So through communications in the Trust. I think it’s good because the Hampshire Medical Fund is really accessible and makes you feel like you’ve got a chance of actually getting much needed medical equipment.”