EPUAP and EWMA have agreed to initiate a joint European advocacy project.

Patient safety has for some years been high on the European Commission health care agenda. At the EU level as well as at national levels of many European nations, considerable investments have been made by health care authorities to establish organisations and programmes addressing the patient safety agenda.

Looking at the patient safety agenda from a wound care perspective, the topic of pressure ulcer (PU) prevention has always been central due to the fact that most PU’s are preventable if the patient is managed correctly by health care staff. Consequently both EPUAP and EWMA have separately been advocating for the prevention of PU’s as a major health care and patient safety issue. Whereas EPUAP, in particular, has strongly supported the annual STOP Pressure Ulcer campaign, EWMA has in collaboration with the Eucomed AWCS engaged in raising attention in the European Parliament and European Commission.

The overall objective to establish a joint EPUAP-EWMA engagement in the PU prevention and patient safety agendas at the European level as well as at the national level in selected European countries.
The project will run for 2 years (1 January 2016 – 31 December 2017). The specific actions of the joint project will be decided and communicated during the next months.