A broken hip – three steps to recovery: Using the National Hip Fracture Database to understand and improve hip fracture care in 2024 (12 September 2024)

Summary

Every year, over 70,000 people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will fall and fracture their hip. This report by the Falls and Fragility Fractures Audit Programme (FFFAP) provides a simple guide for healthcare services to the data and resources available. It also describes the care that hip fracture patients should receive on their journey to recovery.

Content

Key findings

• More people than in 2022 get to an appropriate ward and receive the care of a team with an orthogeriatrician, though these figures are still poorer than pre-Covid.
• As in past years, four out of five patients get out of bed by the day after surgery.
• The number shown to be free of delirium has improved to nearly two thirds.
• More people than ever are returning home and successfully being supported to continue with osteoporosis treatment to prevent future fractures.

Recommendations

NHS England and the Welsh Government should use NHFD data to monitor hospitals’ delivery of three key stages of care to ensure that:

1. hospitals are ready for the people they know will present each day
2. hospitals provide both prompt surgery and optimal peri-operative care
3. rehabilitation and recovery is planned and started early, and continues beyond the hospital.
4. they take a standardised approach to the collection of ethnicity data across all patients’ pathways and provider organisations.
5. people with other injuries benefit from the improvements that have been pioneered among those with hip fracture.