The final pressure ulcer newsletter for 2008 looks forward to significant highlights that will affect the pressure ulcer community over the next 12 months. Without doubt one of the key moments in 2009 will be the publication of the joint pressure ulcer prevention and treatment guidelines produced by the NPUAP and EPUAP. At the start of December the draft treatment recommendations are beginning to appear for comment on the project website at www.pressureulcerguidelines.org. If you have not already signed up at the website to allow you to comment on these emerging recommendations then do so as soon as possible so that you will be able to contribute to these important documents. Once the recommendations are confirmed and released at the NPUAP conference in February 2009 it is the objective of this newsletter to eventually reproduce part or all of the new guidelines to help bring them to the attention of the UK pressure ulcer community. The draft prevention guideline recommendations will be posted shortly to www.pressureulcerguidelines.org so again watch out for these! The development of the joint guidelines has undoubtedly taken longer than first anticipated way back in 2005 when the project was first discussed at a meeting between the NPUAP and EPUAP. This in part reflects the general level of busyness that we all encounter in our day-to-day working lives that limits the time available for voluntary activities such as reading and digesting the global pressure ulcer publications. Part of the delay in producing the guideline statements flows from a positive element - there is now an ever accelerating body of scientific evidence to underpin pressure area care - although of course large and significant gaps exist! This expanding body of evidence had of course to be broken down into a series of evidence tables to allow the development of evidence-based and evidence-informed guideline recommendations. As I write this editorial the key NPUAP and EPUAP guideline development teams are gathering in Amsterdam to review the treatment recommendations and the comments received to date from the wider pressure ulcer community and to finalize the draft prevention recommendations. If over the next two days we can bring the guideline recommendations to a level where they are ready to be shared that will be a significant Christmas present from NPUAP and EPUAP for us all!

Michael Clark
Editor