Welsh Wound Innovation – The Development of an Integrated Approach to a Common and Expensive Clinical Problem.
A new £4 million national centre of excellence in wound prevention and treatment is to be established in Wales with the dual aim of delivering health and wealth benefits for people in Wales.
Acute, traumatic and chronic wounds affect millions of patients globally, particularly older people. The more chronic wounds are frequently long term, painful and debilitating, resulting in extreme loss of quality of life for the patients. For many patients living with non‐healing wounds, amputation of an affected limb may be the only option.
Chronic wounds, alone, conservatively cost the National Health Service £2‐3 billion per year in direct costs alone (5% of NHS budget), yet the issue receives little attention from the media, policy makers and research funding agencies.
The Welsh Wound Initiative will tackle the challenges associated with acute, traumatic and chronic, non‐healing wounds and their treatment and prevention, in addition to other skin health issues. The initiative will be comprised of two focused components; namely the Welsh Wound Innovation Centre (WWIC) and the Welsh Wound Innovation Science Park (WWISP).
The WWIC, a focus for excellence, will deliver a full range of clinical research and knowledge transfer services to NHS, academic institutions and commercial customers. The WWISP will have a strong commercial focus on job creation and business development within the Welsh geography.
The funding announcement was made by Edwina Hart, Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science (BETS), when she addressed delegates attending BioWales 2013 where the theme is the future of healthcare.
The Minister described it as an exciting and innovative venture and collaboration that has the unanimous support of all seven Local Health Boards and welcomed the “opening up” of the NHS in Wales to innovation and industry engagement.
The Minister highlighted that the WWIC provides Wales with a real opportunity to excel in this area. Wales has the expertise to provide a solution and the capability to become a globally recognised leading nation in this important clinical area.
Wound healing is a niche specialty identified by the Life Sciences Sector Panel within the BETS Department of Welsh Government and highlighted within the Science for Wales strategy as an area of genuine excellence for Wales.
Wales has acknowledged global leaders, including Professor Keith Harding who was recently awarded the CBE for his work in this field. This network of leaders creates a strong foundation that acts as a linkage for the business, clinical and academic communities participating in this clinical area. The WWIC will build on this existing foundation.
Funding for the Centre comes from the Welsh Government, all seven local Health Boards and the private sector, with the aim of becoming self‐financing within 3 years, via revenue from academic grants; clinical service and commercial sources.
The Centre will directly employ 31 people, and over its first 5 years aims to deliver at least 11 inward investments to create a business cluster and up to 45 new jobs, attracting external revenue to fund clinical research and to pay for other contract and commercial activities.
The WWIC team, led by Professor Harding, Head of the Wound Healing Research Unit at Cardiff University, has already had encouraging in‐principle discussions with a number of businesses, relating to partnerships as well as co‐location within the WWIC.
On the healthcare side, the WWIC will improve management and delivery of wound prevention and treatment, enhancing quality of life for patients through better diagnosis and treatment outcomes, resulting in fewer hospital admissions and shorter hospital stays, and reduce healthcare costs for the NHS across Wales.
Professor Harding commented, “The new centre will act as a focus for research, clinical and commercial excellence in wound prevention and treatment. This will position Wales in a global leadership position in addressing this growing healthcare issue.”