Fake body parts help hospital staff train to spot pressure ulcers

CREATIVE TEACHING: Jess Clappison, left, and Kirsty Stephenson

By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor

Hospital staff in Hull have been trained to spot pressure ulcers in patients by an education team using fake body parts.

More than 700,000 patients are affected by pressure ulcers in the UK each year and one in 20 people admitted to hospital with a sudden illness will develop a pressure ulcer. As well as the impact on patients, it also costs the NHS more than £3.8m a day to treat pressure ulcers.

The clinical nurse educator, simulation and tissue viability teams from NHS Humber Health Partnership have toured wards at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital with simulation mannequins and the model of a posterior covered with fake pressure ulcers to support training.

Kirsty Stephenson, nursing simulation fellow, and administrator Jess Clappison created the ulcers using “moulage”, the art of applying mock injuries for training exercises, at the Hull Institute of Learning and Simulation (HILS) in the grounds of Hull Royal Infirmary.

“People learn in different ways and seeing what an ulcer actually looks like rather than a photograph in a textbook can help staff identify exactly what they’re looking for in patients,” Kirsty said.

 Three different “categories” of pressure ulcers were created by Kirsty and Jess, graded on the depth and severity of the tissue damage, which were then affixed to the mannequins and model posterior to take onto the wards.

“I asked staff to identify the different grades before asking them to explain what the next course of action and treatment would be for each different ulcer,” Kirsty said.

“The reaction from staff was really great. While some were a bit shocked at first when we arrived on the ward, they liked that the training was interactive and they could actually see and understand the difference between the ulcers while then learning what to do next.”

Angie Oswald of the tissue viability team said the clinical simulation exercise had been invaluable in their work to reduce the amount of pressure ulcers in patients at both hospitals.

She said: “Clinical simulation is a fantastic teaching tool and offers clinical staff the chance to learn in a safe environment. Using the mannequins and the moulage helps them familiarise themselves with what they should be looking for if a patient does develop a pressure ulcer and what steps they can take to stop it getting worse.”