MICA: Monitoring wound status using multi-parameter optical fibre sensors

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A recent analysis of the health economic burden of wounds highlighted that ~2.2 million wounds were managed by the NHS in 2012/2013 requiring annually 18.6 million practice nurse, 10.9 million community nurse, 7.7 million GP and 3.4 million hospital outpatient visits. The annual NHS cost of managing these wounds is £4.5-5.1 billion (~4% of the entire NHS budget).We propose to develop a wound dressing incorporating inexpensive optical fibre sensors (OFS) which will monitor whether a wound is healing, whether healing is not progressing and whether a wound is infected. The proposed sensors have been developed and validated by our team in laboratory tests thus greatly reducing project risk. The new dressing could have a significant impact on NHS costs and patient care. It will enable clinical interventions to take place promptly but only when required, thus improving wound care and reducing the number of NHS appointments. Studies will involve clinic based evaluation followed by a community based study of patients with chronic wounds. Design, regulatory, statistics and health economics expertise will help to support development of a valuable, safe tool that is acceptable to patients and clinicians.