The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to measure the impact of chronic wounds (leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers) on patient health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and identify areas of patient concern. The Cardiff Wound Impact Schedule (CWIS) was created following a three-stage process. Stage 1 included a focus group (n = 10) and a series of semi-structured interviews (n = 13) to generate items for the questionnaire. Stage 2 involved piloting the 28-item questionnaire on 124 patients (64·5% with leg ulceration and 35·5% with diabetic foot ulceration): data from this stage were analysed using factor analysis. The reliability, validity and reproducibility of the resulting scale were assessed in Stage 3, a 3-month follow-up study of 135 patients in which patients completed the CWIS and the SF-36. Factor analysis identified three domains of HRQoL: physical symptoms and daily living, social life and well-being. There were no significant differences in scores across the wound types. Internal consistency was good (α = 0·77–0·96) as was reproducibility (P