National Cellulitis Improvement Programme
The National Cellulitis Improvement Programme (NCIP) was developed in 2020 when Welsh Government provided funding for three specialist posts. Cellulitis is a skin infection that causes pain, malaise, poor quality of life and impaired activities of daily living, with a life-threatening risk of sepsis if mismanaged. It represents a significant burden to the NHS causing around 7,500 Emergency Department contacts and around 31,000 bed days in Wales in 2020-2021. Cellulitis is intrinsically linked to lymphoedema (if you have lymphoedema your risk of cellulitis is very high and if you have repeated episodes of cellulitis you have a high risk of developing lymphoedema!).
Aims of NCIP
- Increase awareness in identifying and managing cellulitis for healthcare professionals (HCPs) and people affected by cellulitis
- Improve HCPs and patients understanding of the risk factors which attribute to a cellulitis episode
- Decrease the incidence of repeated cellulitis episodes through education, assessment and prompt treatment
- Reduce the systemic pressure on Emergency Departments (ED), admissions & inpatient services through effective treatment of cellulitis
- Reduce systematic pressures in Primary Care through education and effective treatment of cellulitis supporting proactive care
- Capture cellulitis patient-reported outcome measures to improve the pathway using CELLUPROM© and EQ5D5L.
Since inception the patient and financial benefits of the programme were so positive indicating reduced admissions and improved patient-reported outcome measures that the programme was scaled and expedited to include primary care. In all Health Boards in Wales, NCIP sees patients who are admitted or have repeated episodes of cellulitis.
