Award | Excellence in a Behaviour Change Programme…with a 98% success score
COMMUNIQUÉ Awards 2026 – Finalist
The Wound Care Behaviour Change Programme that Turned Patients into Partners… With a 98% Success Rate and 59% Fewer Nurse Visits.
With nearly four million people in the UK living with a wound each year, community nursing teams are under growing pressure. Research showed that more than half of dressing change visits were clinically unnecessary, driven by routine scheduling rather than patient need. For a leading FTSE 100 healthcare company specialising in chronic wound care dressings, this represented both a system challenge and an opportunity for a meaningful behaviour change programme.
Working alongside clinicians, patients and behavioural science experts, we developed a shared wound care programme designed to shift appropriate wound management activities from nurse-led care to supported patient self-management. The strategy was framed around greater patient empowerment, confidence and independence with the added benefit of a reduction in nursing hours.
Behavioural Science
Using the COM-B behaviour change framework, we identified three critical barriers to adoption: low clinician confidence in assessing patient suitability, lack of structured implementation guidance, and limited patient understanding of self-care. To address these, we co-created a dual professional and patient toolkit alongside Tissue Viability Nurses and patient representatives.
At the centre of the programme was a chronic wound care dressing featuring an integrated change indicator, enabling patients to identify when dressing changes were clinically required and in doing so, reducing unnecessary interventions.
The programme combined behavioural science, clinician education, patient enablement tools, gamified training experiences and implementation frameworks to embed sustainable practice change across three pilot sites.
Published Results
The results demonstrated measurable impact:
- 59% reduction in nurse visits
- 98% patient success rate adapting to shared wound care
- 72% reduction in dressing changes when the dressing technology was used
- 52% of patients requiring no additional support
Beyond operational efficiencies, the behaviour change programme showed that carefully designed behaviour change interventions can improve confidence, autonomy and engagement for both patients and healthcare professionals, helping to reshape chronic wound care delivery at scale.
Client name omitted at their request. Winners will be announced at the Communiqué Awards – Thursday 02.JUL.26 at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane.
Contact EatMoreFruit for more information about behaviour change programmes built for healthcare brands and their customers.
Why is a behaviour change programme important for chronic wound care?
A behaviour change programme tackles the habits, routines and confidence barriers that drive unnecessary dressing changes across chronic wound care. Rather than relying on education alone, our behaviour change programme identified the real-world barriers preventing adoption and introduced practical interventions that made shared care feel achievable, safe and beneficial for both clinicians and patients.
What behavioural science framework was used?
We built the behaviour change programme around the COM-B model, which focuses on the three drivers required for sustained behaviour change: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation. We designed every part of the programme — from clinician education to patient materials — to strengthen one or more of these behavioural drivers and support long-term adoption of shared wound care.
What made the programme different?
The behaviour change programme combined behavioural science with practical implementation tools co-created alongside Tissue Viability Nurses and patients. We also integrated a chronic wound care dressing with a built-in change indicator, helping patients recognise when dressings genuinely required changing and reducing unnecessary interventions through greater confidence and self-management.
What outcomes did the behaviour change programme achieve?
The behaviour change programme delivered measurable real-world impact across three clinical pilot sites. The programme reduced nurse visits by 59% and achieved a 98% patient success rate adapting to shared wound care. It also increased clinician and patient engagement, helping accelerate wider adoption of shared wound care models within chronic wound management.
98%
patient success rate
72%
reduction in dressing changes
59%
reduction in nurse visits
52%
of patients requiring no additional support
