Keeping the pressure high on prevention.

Health care professionals have long recognised pressure sores as a problem (1, 2, 3). Attention has focused on the monetary cost and scale of the issue (4) in terms of pain caused and competition for finite resources (5). The Health of the Nation consultative document (6) estimated that 6.7 per cent of the adult hospital population are affected, costing the NHS at least 60 million pounds a year. Many consider these sores preventable, and believe the deployment of resources in the health service should focus on prevention instead of treatment (7).