Skin problems
Wound and ulcer care
A small break in the skin on a foot can take a long time to heal, particularly where circulation or feeling is reduced. We work out what is behind it, take the pressure off it, dress it properly, and involve your GP or the hospital team when that is what it needs.
Treatment Summary
How long
30 minutes
What it costs
£35
No new patient fee. Follow-up dressing appointments are the same £35.
Getting in
Free parking at the Tesco next door, under a minute's walk.
What we do
Does it hurt
We work gently and we stop whenever you ask. Cleaning a wound and taking away the dead tissue at its edge is usually painless, because that tissue has no feeling in it. If an area is tender we tell you before we go near it.
A short line in a patient's own words goes here, once we have a real one to use.
Placeholder — name and town go here.
When a break in the skin needs seeing.
Most small cuts and blisters on a healthy foot heal on their own within a fortnight. A wound that is not following that course, or any wound at all on a foot affected by diabetes or poor circulation, is a different matter, and the timing matters.
An early pressure mark on the skin — at Complete Chiropody and Podiatry in Chester-le-Street
A small, clean foot ulcer being cared for — at Complete Chiropody and Podiatry in Chester-le-Street
A larger chronic wound dressed after cleaning — at Complete Chiropody and Podiatry in Chester-le-Street
Treatment Information
What we do about it.
01
We work out why it is not healing
A wound that will not close is usually telling you something: pressure that has not been taken off it, circulation that cannot support healing, or infection. Working out which one comes before choosing any dressing.
02
We check the blood supply
Healing depends on it. We feel for the pulses and hold a small probe against the skin to listen to the flow. If the supply is not good enough for this to heal, no dressing will change that, and you need a vascular opinion rather than another appointment here.
03
We clean it and dress it
Dead tissue and callus around the edge stop a wound closing and hide what is underneath, so they come off. Then a dressing chosen for how wet or dry the wound is, and a clear plan for how often it is changed.
04
We take the pressure off it
This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that matters most. A wound on a weight-bearing part of the foot will not close while you keep standing on it, so padding, a different shoe or an offloading device is part of the treatment rather than an optional extra.
Looking after it between appointments
Get help the same day if…
These are the signs of an infected foot and it can move quickly. Ring us the same day, or contact your GP or the diabetic foot team at your hospital — whoever can see you soonest. A foot infection is not something to leave until Monday.
Online booking opens soon
Our appointment diary is not open just yet. Leave your details and be the first to know when it opens, so you can pick a time that suits you, evenings and weekends included.
Diary opening soonOr ring 07838 652554 and we will find you a time.
Rather talk to someone?
Ring during opening hours and you will speak to a person. Home visits are arranged this way.
Healing depends on three things: adequate arterial supply, control of infection, and offloading. Assessment therefore covers pulses and a hand-held Doppler waveform, sensation, wound dimensions and depth, probing to bone, and the condition of the surrounding skin. Sharp debridement of callus and non-viable tissue at the wound margin has the best evidence of any single intervention in neuropathic ulceration, and callus over a plantar ulcer both conceals it and raises local pressure. Dressing choice follows exudate level rather than brand preference. A neuropathic plantar ulcer requires mechanical offloading to heal, and footwear alone is usually insufficient. Probing to bone, or a wound failing to progress despite adequate care, raises osteomyelitis and needs imaging and a multidisciplinary opinion. Anyone with diabetes and an active foot ulcer meets the national criterion for referral to a multidisciplinary diabetic foot service within one working day. Suspected Charcot neuroarthropathy, a hot swollen foot with intact circulation, is an immediate referral and an immobilisation question rather than a wound care one.
Questions
Things people ask about wound care.
Often both. We do the hands-on wound care and the offloading; antibiotics, blood tests and referrals come through your GP or the hospital team. If a wound needs the diabetic foot service, we say so and help you get there rather than treating around it.
It depends far more on circulation and pressure than on the dressing. Some close in a few weeks and some take months. You will get an honest expectation once we have assessed it rather than a comforting one.
No. A wound heals better covered and slightly moist than dried out in the air, which is the opposite of what most people were told years ago.
Usually yes, with the dressing protected, and we will show you how. What matters more is that it goes back on clean and dry afterwards.
Because that rim of callus is loading the edges of the wound and holding it open, and it hides what is happening underneath. Taking it off is one of the few things genuinely proven to speed healing.
Still have a question?
Ask it here and we will come back to you by email, usually the same working day. If it is urgent, calling is quicker.
Online booking opens soon
Our appointment diary is not open just yet. Leave your details and be the first to know when it opens, so you can pick a time that suits you, evenings and weekends included.
Diary opening soonOr ring 07838 652554 and we will find you a time.
Rather talk to someone?
Ring during opening hours and you will speak to a person. Home visits are arranged this way.
Wound and ulcer care
treatment in Chester-le-Street
Our clinic is in Chester-le-Street, right next to Tesco, so parking is free and it is less than a minute's walk from the car park to our door. We also see people from the towns and villages around it, and visit at home across the same area.