Equipment Needed for Wound Dressing (With a Printable Checklist)
There are some essential things needed for wound dressing that you should always have in good supply. A full stock of wound dressing equipment is necessary if you want to be ready to treat any kind of wound.
Here's a definite list of equipment and supplies for hospitals, GPs, first aid rooms, nursing homes, and all places that need to be prepared for wound care.
Find a downloadable PDF checklist of items needed for wound dressing at the bottom of this article to print off or save.
If you want to know more about wound dressing, find many resources in our blog, including A Complete Guide to Wound Dressing and Troubleshooting Wound Dressing: What to Do When Something Goes Wrong.
PPE
The first step in wound care is ensuring you are fully protected from harmful agents. Wearing the right PPE protects you and the patient from any bacteria or particulate that can be passed between you. This is an important step in wound care hygiene.
Disposable Gloves
Even though you must wash your hands before treating a wound, wearing disposable gloves is necessary. This ensures there’s minimal risk of passing harmful agents to the open wound from your hands. It also protects you from touching blood and bodily fluids containing pathogens.
Vinyl gloves are the most cost-effective option and ideal for general wound care. Nitrile gloves provide better precision and traction. They are also graze-proof and puncture-proof, offering better protection during surgical operations or when you’re exposed to sharp objects.
Surgical Face Masks
While treating and dressing a wound, you will be in close proximity to the patient. A surgical mask ensures no airborne droplets from your nose and mouth contaminate the open wound and cause infection.
Type IIR face masks are the best surgical masks for this purpose. They offer 98% bacterial filtration efficiency and are also splash-resistant.
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Medical Drapes
Medical or surgical drapes aren’t always necessary. Still, they can offer privacy to the patient or a sterile operation field for precision work, such as during operations or when stitching a wound closed. A medical drape usually has an absorbent layer and a waterproof layer and comes with a hole cut out in the middle to line up with the wound.
Hand Sanitiser
While treating and dressing a wound, you will be in close proximity to the patient. A surgical mask ensures no airborne droplets from your nose and mouth contaminate the open wound and cause infection.
Type IIR face masks are the best surgical masks for this purpose. They offer 98% bacterial filtration efficiency and are also splash-resistant.
Wound Cleaning and Hygiene
Some of the most critical equipment used in wound dressing is used to clean the wound area and ensure it's free from dirt, debris, and bacteria. You can’t put a dressing on a wound until it’s clean, so you need some tools to ensure you can clear the wound bed, ready for it to be covered.
Tweezers
With a pair of tweezers, you can clean a wound bed gently and precisely. Use tweezers to pick up and remove small particulate without disturbing the surrounding tissue. Tweezers can be used to remove debris that would be too difficult or damaging to wipe with a cloth or which can’t be dislodged with water. Note: tweezers shouldn’t be inserted into a wound to remove embedded objects unless done by a trained professional.
Tweezers can also be used to move wound dressings around or peel them away from the wound in a sterile way that doesn't require direct contact.
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Alcohol-Free Disinfecting Wipes
While alcohol is an excellent disinfectant, it’s dangerous to use alcohol on an open wound to clean it. Alcohol can burn cells and cause damage to healthy tissues. Instead, use an alcohol-free wipe or a sterile saline cleansing wipe to clean the area. These wipes will also help adhesive dressings adhere better to the skin around the wound.
Saline Solution
A wound dressing solution like sterile normal saline can be used to rinse the blood off the wound and dislodge dirt and debris. If you have access to clean running water, this works too, but having a bottle of saline solution is useful if there isn’t a washing facility nearby or the wound is in a place that’s difficult for the patient to move.
Skin Prep Pads
If the skin needs to be cut or an injection given as part of the wound care, the area must be sterilised beforehand. Keep a stock of alcohol prep pads together with your wound dressing equipment to sterilise skin before administering injections or making incisions.
Clinical Waste Bages
Part of hygiene best practices is ensuring no potentially infectious waste material presents a hazard to people, animals, or the environment. Any body fluids, or materials contaminated with body fluids, must go into a yellow biohazard bag and disposed of by your facilities guidelines to ensure they don’t contaminate other waste streams or present risks to people.
Browse the biohazardous waste topic on our blog for resources on how to deal with clinical waste correctly.
Sharps Disposal Bins
Relative to the point above, if you use any sharp tools like needles or scalpels, these must be disposed of in a sharps disposal bin to ensure they don’t puncture the clinical waste bag. If you need to dispose of any other sharp material, such as broken glass with blood on it, it must also go in the sharps bin.
Cotton Tipped Applicators
These are highly versatile tools that can be used to gently clean with precision, blot up blood around a wound, or apply topical treatments like creams and ointments.
Cotton Balls
Cotton balls are highly absorbent and versatile. Use a whole one to blot a wound, soak one in water to dab or wipe a wound clean, or tear it into smaller pieces for smaller areas. They can also be used for padding when creating a dressing.
Gauze Swabs
Gauze is highly absorbent and non-linting, which makes it an excellent material for blotting and cleaning a wound, as no fibres will get stuck in the wound bed. Gauze also has wicking properties meaning it quickly transfers moisture from one side to the other.
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Wound Dressing
There is a wide range of different types of wound dressings, and you must pick the right one for the wound you’re treating. If you’re unsure what to use to dress a wound, consult our guide Types of Wound Dressings. Find the essential dressing equipment wound care items in this section.
Tuff Cut Scissors
Tuff cut scissors are extra strong scissors that can be used to cut through clothing or other materials to get good access to a wound to treat it. They can also be used to cut dressings to size or cut lengths of bandage. They have a moulded tip that prevents accidental injury to the patient.
Wound Closures
In the event of a deep wound that will not close or a wound on a part of the body prone to splitting open again with movement, wound closures, or sutures, can be used. Wound closures are also a less invasive alternative to stitches if stitches are not required.
Suture Pack
When surgical suturing is required, you will need a suturing pack with all the necessary tools to get the job done. This should consist of:
- Swabs
- Paper towels
- A Gallipot tray
- Needle holders
- Forceps
- Scissors
Adhesive Dressings
Ensure you have some adhesive dressings in supply. Adhesive dressings have a sticky layer around the wound pad that adheres directly to the skin around the wound. This means they isolate the wound from all external elements and don’t require extra adhesion or bandaging to keep them in place.
You should also keep a supply of waterproof adhesive dressings as these are optimal for applications like post-operative wounds where the patient must keep stitches dry, for example.
Non-Adhesive Dressings
A thicker dressing is required for more extensive, severe wounds with more exudate. Non-adhesive dressings tend to have a greater absorption capacity. Keep a selection of wound dressings in different sizes at the ready for different types of wounds.
Absorbent Dressing Pads
Highly absorbent, double-sided, low-adherent dressing pads can be used on post-op wounds, lacerations, burns, and grazes. They won’t stick to the wound bed and can be used to create a wide range of different dressings. You can also get these wound dressings individually wrapped in wallets, which are great for first aid kits.
Ambulance Dressings
An ambulance dressing is a good choice when faced with a serious trauma wound or severe bleeding. Emergency services carry ambulance dressings because they can be used to stem blood loss quickly. Ambulance dressings come with a thick wound pad and a strap attached to wrap around the body and hold them in place quickly.
Eye Pads
High-absorbency eye pad dressings are designed to be the best shape and size to put over an eye to dress an eye wound.
Medicated Dressings
Burns, over granulation, and infections are just some situations requiring medicated dressings, or dressings that support natural healing. Depending on your circumstances, you should ensure you have suitable dressings or supplies to create one. Common types of medicated dressings, and those that support healing, are:
- Hydrocolloids
- Hydrogels
- Silver
- Medical honey
- Iodine
- Alginate
- Fibrous absorbent dressings
Bandaging
If you use an adhesive wound dressing, your job may be done at this stage. But non-adhesive dressings require a bit of extra work to ensure they stay where they need to and don’t expose the wound to the elements while it heals.
Assorted Bandages
With the wide range of different wounds and dressings you might need to apply, it’s important to have a range of bandages. Here are some essentials:
- Crepe bandage: a cotton, highly stretchy and conforming bandage which provides only mild pressure. This is a versatile bandage option.
- Tubular gauze bandage: ideal for use on fingers, toes, arms, legs, and joints. The seamless bandage holds a dressing gently in place while allowing optimal movement. Use a tubular bandage applicator to make application easier.
- Triangular bandage: a first aid essential that can be used to create a sling.
- WOW bandage: white open weave bandage made with a loose, breathable weave. This bandage has no stretch capacity and does not constrict the body—best for dressings that need maximum breathability.
- Conforming bandage: lightweight and stretchy, this bandage is made from synthetic fibres and adheres to itself to help keep a dressing in place.
Dressing Retention Tape
Use dressing retention tape to hold a non-adhesive bandage against the body, or use the tape to secure a bandage to the skin. Choose a hypoallergenic dressing retention tape to minimise the risk of a skin reaction.
Safety Pins
Safety pins are another traditional first aid kit essential. Use safety pins to secure the loose end of a bandage in place, they’re highly versatile.
Click the button below to download a PDF checklist of all the items in this article. You can use this wound dressing equipment list to stock up any healthcare facility, first aid kit, or even used for veterinary wound dressing and animal first aid.
If you want to find out where to buy wound dressing equipment on this list, browse our website and place an order with us.
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