Leading social care provider clinches second national award for ground-breaking pressure ulcer prevention work

Highland Home Carers (HHC) has won a second national award for its ground-breaking work on the prevention of pressure ulcers in a care at home setting.

The Inverness organisation won the Scottish Care Award for technology and people in recognition of its highly successful prevention pilot scheme for potentially fatal pressure ulcers.

The pilot scheme, which saw HHC’s director of operations Carolanne Mainland, and her team of practice support technicians, utilise existing sub epidural moisture scanners to mitigate the risk of

care clients developing a pressure ulcer.

“It’s an honour to be recognised by our peers," she said. "We set an ambitious target for the pilot scheme of 70 per cent pressure ulcer reduction in a high risk target group but even we were blown away by the 100 per cent impact. Not one single person in the study developed a pressure ulcer during the trial. This meant no hospital admissions and a 50 per cent reduction in district nurse call-outs."

This month, she has been invited to speak about how they developed a standard operating procedure and pocket guide for use of the scanning device in people’s own homes at The Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

Their efforts mean the techniques are now scalable for a care at home setting.

HHC was previously recognised at the Digital Health and Care Awards in the data driven innovation category.

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