Increasing the use and impact of compression therapy: understanding the barriers to optimal provision

What is it about?

Compression therapy brings impactful therapeutic intervention and is the cornerstone of treatment for venous ulceration; unfortunately, this potent therapy is poorly used, creating non-healing leg ulceration, destroyed lives and unwarranted costs to the health economy. This paper brings a focus on the properties that deliver this impact, the role that compression plays in delivering a healing intervention for most leg wounds, and the barriers that prevent its optimal use. Clinicians need to understand the scientific theory behind this therapy in order to be persuaded of its critical benefit and then be able to sell this often difficult intervention to their patients. To be confident in the range of its use requires knowledge of its essential properties and skilful application to achieve tolerance and the delivery of compression at a therapeutic level or dose. Yet compression therapy and leg ulceration, including those that suffer with this, appear to be associated with an unhelpful narrative. To turn this around, our language and our descriptors need to be challenged. It is imperative that we bring positive descriptors to both compression and leg ulceration as a specialism; this will bring a more active and targeted approach to care delivery. Optimising compression therapy and its potent properties will bring significant benefits to the patient, our workforce and the health economy.

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