This meeting report is based on the Mölnlycke-sponsored workshop held at the sixth World Union of Wound Healing Societies (WUWHS) Congress on March 1–5, 2022, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The workshop, titled ‘Surgical incision care — negative pressure wound therapy and advanced dressings: what to use and when’, included presentations from Kylie Sandy- Hodgetts, Rhidian Morgan-Jones and Amit Gefen. The topics of surgical dressings, risk assessment and requirements of closed-incision negative pressure wound therapy (ciNPWT) were all explored.