As their name suggests, these bandages are used to retain dressings in place. They should not be used to apply pressure as they are unsuitable for this purpose. There are two basic types of retention bandages, flat or `roller' bandages and tubular bandages.
The first `retention bandage' was White Open Wove (WOW) a rigid fabric with extremely limited conformability that is available in a range of widths. Because of the poor performance characteristics of WOW two softer more conformable bandages were introduced. These are Kling and Crinx the Cotton Conforming Bandages of the British Pharmacopoiea. New lightweight bandages have since been developed that have advantages over the simple cotton products. Some of these are included in the Tariff, and although they vary in performance and price, all of them are cheaper than the products they are designed to replace.
| Bandage Type | Cost (p) | ||||
| 2.5cm | 5 cm | 7.5cm | 10 cm | 15 cm | |
| K-Band | - | 16 | 20 | 23 | 39 |
| Easifix | - | 30 | 37 | 43 | 73 |
| Stayform | - | 30 | 38 | 43 | 73 |
| Slinky | - | 37 | 52 | 63 | 89 |
| Crinx | - | 56 | 70 | 85 | 117 |
| Kling | - | 58 | 75 | 91 | 120 |
| White open wove | 27 | 45 | 64 | 84 | - |
Two types of lightweight elasticated tubular bandage are included in the Tariff. Tubifast is a lightweight elasticated stockinette that is particularly useful for holding dressings in place on digits and limbs and Netelast has an open net-like structure and can be cut and fashioned into garments to retain dressings on awkward anatomical sites such as the head or groins region.