**1. Introduction**

Wound management is considered one of the main pillars of patients' care at all levels of health service. The financial burden on the health service and the community in relation to wound management are due to prolonged stay, the cost of different materials required for wound care, delayed discharge, loss of earnings, continuous input and follow up at primary care level. No

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

reliable data are available for the cost of treating the wound which do not close with primary intention. A report by Lewis et al. [1] has carried out a comprehensive review of the literature and has found that the cost of dressings and other material alone could be as high as £37 million per year in England. Data for primary care are easily available as they purchase on Form 10 but the data for secondary care are difficult to find as most hospitals buy directly from manufacturers at specially negotiated price, therefore factoring this in is quite difficult and no reliable study has been found on literature search. If patient stays in hospital the cost of stay in hospital could be as high as £400–500 per day depending upon the geographic location of hospital. Additionally, the cost of staffing, local or general anaesthetic, has to be factored in as well.

Significant developments have taken place with regards to wound management over the course of the years. Thanks to the evolving technology, better understanding of the healing process and relevant contributing factors we are now able to address the problem in a timely, cost-effective and efficient manner. It is a developing area and therefore the means of management will only improve with time.
