Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: What happened when we went decaf – the story so far (February 2025)

Summary

Across hospitals in Northumberland and North Tyneside, decaf (decaffeinated) drinks are not routinely offered to patients during drinks rounds.

However, a wide range of specialists agreed that there could be different benefits to making decaf drinks the norm. A key one is a potential reduction in patients falling as they try to go to the toilet.

Therefore, they ran a pilot in May 2024 to discover the impact on reduced falls, and patient and staff experience. The initial findings were very positive. They have now expanded the project to collect more feedback. Read more about what they did and download their poster.