Promoting patient autonomy, empowerment and self-care during COVID-19

Alison Schofield, Clinical Manager & Honorary Tissue Viability Nurse, Mole Digital & York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated doing things differently, and many services rose to the challenge. The NWCSP recommended the following:
Supporting more patients to self-care.
Increasing the use of telemedicine.
Using tele-triage before home visits.
As we support more patients in supported to self-care, requiring fewer face to-face visits how do we empower patients to be involved in carrying out their own care? How do we encourage concordance and how do we change the culture of wound care delivery? Self-care can only occur safely after a full initial assessment, and good shared-care systems are needed to ensure adequate dressings, clinical review, and support.
What have we learned from the past 12 months and how do we ensure that supported self-care has the right systems in place, appropriate tools to support the patient and clinicians and become part of everyday practice, not only a crisis solution?