Clinical Guidelines
How to use our guide
A severe burn injury can be one of the most painful injuries that a human body can suffer, both physically and emotionally. For many families, the difficulty in finding access to support services and information on ‘what to expect’ can add to their burden as they work to heal the physical and emotional scars.
This section of the website will provide links to clinical practice guidelines including types of physical and emotional recovery that may be expected.
Burn Transfer Guideline
Burn injuries can present at any point in the NSW health system. The ability to assess, manage and transfer these patients to tertiary services is fundamental to good patient outcomes in appropriate time frames
Burn Management
It is often difficult to define a minor burn as classification is not solely reliant on burn size or depth. A minor burn is one which does not fit the transfer criteria and can be managed in a non-burn unit hospital or clinic; including appropriate wound and pain management.
On the other hand, Burn Units provide specialist, multidisciplinary care in the management of burn injuries due to the continued reinforcement of treatment modalities, which is not readily available in outlying areas. Burn care involves high expense for wound management materials, staffing, equipment and long term scar management products. There are also commonly long term issues arising from the initial trauma, resultant scars and the ongoing effects these have on the patient and their family.
Multidisciplinary Team
Treatment of burn injuries and their aftermaths is complex. Since there are different disciplines involved, each professional has a different role in the care of burn survivors.