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News Article
Nationwide roll out of AI tool that predicts falls and viruses
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An AI tool is being rolled out across the NHS that can predict a patient’s risk of falling with 97% accuracy, preventing up to 2,000 falls and hospital admissions each day. The predictive tool, developed by Cera, is being used in more than two million patient home care visits a month, monitoring vital health signs such as blood pressure, heart rate and temperature, to predict signs of deterioration in advance so it can then alert healthcare staff. It is in use across more than two-thirds of NHS integrated care systems and helps to provide care at home by flagging up to 5,000 high-risk alerts a day, reducing hospitalisations by up to 70%. Dr Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHS England, said: “This new tool now being used across the country shows how the NHS is harnessing the latest technology, including AI, to not only improve the care patients receive but also to boost efficiency across the NHS by cutting unnecessary admissions and freeing up beds ahead of next winter, helping hospitals to mitigate typical seasonal pressures. “We know falls are the leading cause of hospital admissions in older people, causing untold suffering, affecting millions each year and costing the NHS around £2 billion, so this new software has the potential to be a real game-changer in the way we can predict, prevent and treat people in the community. “This AI tool is a perfect example of how the NHS can use the latest tech to keep more patients safe at home and out of hospital, two cornerstones of the upcoming 10-year Health Plan that will see shifts from analogue to digital, and from hospital to community care.” The software will also be used to detect the symptoms of winter illnesses like Covid, flu, RSV, and norovirus, allowing NHS and care teams to intervene before hospital care is needed. Read full story Source: Digital Health, 5 March 2025 -
Content Article
A recent collaboration between Hartland House care home and NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) has shown remarkable success in reducing falls by 84%, supporting the NHS by alleviating unnecessary pressures and empowering care teams through cutting-edge AI technology. Through a six-month pilot project with Nobi’s Smart Lamps, this innovative approach is making strides in fall prevention, fall detection, and overall resident safety, enhancing the quality of life for both residents and care staff at Hartland House. -
Content Article
At a recent Patient Safety Education Network meeting, Karen Male, ward leader at the University Hospital Southampton, gave a presentation on how she reduced falls on her ward. We asked Karen to share her journey and insights in a blog for the hub. The Patient Safety Education Network is a informal voluntary peer network for those in patient safety education and training roles. It provides a monthly drop-in session with guests to talk through issues of importance to those in patient safety education and training roles and now has over 470 members. You can find out about the network here. The challenge I joined the ward 14 months ago at a time when there was a high number of falls. In one year there was 72 falls, including four high-harm falls, and we would regularly have three falls a day. Falls prevention and staff confidence was low in the management and assessment of falls, and policies and procedures were not being followed. The ward layout was challenging—a corridor with three-bedded bays, long and narrow. Many of the patients were older and there had been a lot of Covid infections. My goal was simple: to reduce the falls in our ward. What I did I organised an entire ward awayday focusing on falls education, prevention, management of falls, and policies and procedures—everyone attended at the same time. This allowed the staff to discuss the way they worked ('work as done'). Back at the ward a Baywatch bay and a PHUDD scoring system was set up with the aim to reduce falls, particularly unwitnessed falls, by identifying if someone is high, medium or low risk of falling. The ward is a long corridor so one to two Baywatch bays are required. The PHUDD scoring system was used to identify those patients most at risk and to identify where they can go on the ward for the safest outcomes and if additional support is needed. It’s completed at least once daily for patients. On the PHUDD scoring system, 1 point was given to each question where the answer is yes. A point was added for any fall in the hospital. This was then used to decide which patient needed to be in the Baywatch bay. This score is on the handover and reviewed daily and at catch ups. Outcomes We have significantly reduced our falls—there has been 61.7% reduction in falls. There has been two long periods with no falls (one for a 48-day period and one for a 50-day period). Since the education day, we have had 1 or 2 falls a month rather than 5-11 falls every month. In the last 4 month we have had 6 falls instead of the potential 44. Staff are now educated on policies and procedure around the prevention of falls and the management of falls. Staff are proactive in the prevention of falls. Everyone knows that the Baywatch bay is the priority. And then everyone has their ends of the bay but we all cover each other. We have signs to say that’s it’s a Baywatch bay—for staff but also for relatives to say we can’t leave this bay. PHUDD score gives us evidence. You might have enough staff but we might have five patients with a particularly high score. So we have more staff around the bays to even it out where it’s needed. Night staff feel empowered to move patients who were most at risk to higher observation beds as they are the staff group most affected by falls on the ward. Bay nursing introduced handovers conducted outside of the bays, which enhanced the communication as opposed to being in an area away from the patients. We have completed a falls After Action Review and were praised for our significant improvement in post falls management and documentation. Senior management across our Trust have asked to learn more about the falls reduction plan. Barriers faced I met barriers. Staff were not acting in the way I wanted so I met resistance. But I was very honest with them. Told them what the consequences were. Got the most resistant on board first and then everyone else was easier. At the beginning the staff were demotivated and didn’t feel part of a team. We need to keep our teams valued and motivated. It’s an ongoing commitment to staff. We are always looking at how we can improve and asking staff what their ideas are. I think the biggest thing I did was look at what was my one main priority. And that’s what we focused on—falls. Now we are moving to pressure ulcers. If you pick one big thing to work on it’s easier. Give it a big focus and then, once sorted, move on to the next thing rather than trying to do everything at once. Next steps Training and education is essential—this has continued regularly from the ward leadership team. I’d like to do some simple quantification—more cost effective, efficient. PHUDD score gives us evidence. You might have enough staff but we might have five patients with a particularly high score. So we have more staff around the bays to even it out where it’s needed. We are now doing another nurse-led trial setting daily goals for patient mobility. We are very clear what the goals are, to increase mobilisation, and these goals are on the handover sheets for everyone to see. Further reading on the hub Yellow kits - an innovation to reduce the risk of falls in Accident and Emergency departments "The greatest part of this adventure has been the sharing of information." The Patient Safety Education Network one year on Implementing the aSSKINg pressure ulcer care bundle – a blog by Susan Martin Have you implemented a new initiative in your organisation? Have you improved patient safety where you work? We would love to hear from you and share on the hub your journey. If you are a member, you can share directly on the hub or please contact [email protected] to discuss further.- Posted
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Content Article
The National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) is a continuous audit of all inpatients who have a fall that results in a femoral fracture. This report looks at clinical data on falls collected in 2023. Based on 1,609 cases, it states that falls prevention activity should not focus solely on older people’s wards, finding that nearly half of all inpatient femoral fractures (IFFs) occur on general medical wards. To address the potential for harm caused by hospital-acquired deconditioning, this report presents a new approach to risk factor assessment that focuses on promoting activity to ensure each patient is fit to move as safely as possible. This covers factors such as vision, medication review, delirium, mobility and continence, and provides information on the proportion of patients affected by each in 2023, compared to 2022 and 2021. It contains five key recommendations, four of which state that Trusts and health boards should: Review their policies and practice to ensure that older hospital inpatients are enabled to be as active as possible Ensure that there are robust governance processes in place to understand when post-fall checks fail to correctly identify a fall related injury’ Have processes in place to hasten time to administration of analgesia after an injurious fall Prepare for the audit expansion in January 2025. The fifth recommendation states that NHS England and the Welsh Government should implement national drivers to ensure that all older people are screened for delirium upon hospital admission and reviewed for changes suggestive of a new onset of delirium for the duration of their admission.- Posted
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Event
Patient safety in hospices
Patient Safety Learning posted an event in Community Calendar
This conference focuses on improving safety for hospice patients. The day will highlight best practice in improving safety in hospices, highlight new developments such as the implications of the new Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), and the new CQC Inspection Framework, and will focus on key clinical safety areas such as falls prevention, medication safety, reduction and management of pressure ulcers, nutrition and hydration, improving the response and investigation of incidents, preparing for onsite inspections and developing a compassionate culture in hospices. Register at https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/patient-safety-hospices or email [email protected] hub members receive a 20% discount. Email [email protected] for discount code. Follow the conference on Twitter @HCUK_Clare #PSHospices- Posted
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Community Post
Better use of data for medication safety in hospitals
Kenny Fraser posted a topic in Medicine management
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- Digital health
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- Interoperability
- Precision medicine
- Start-Up
- Safety assessment
- Safety behaviour
- Safety management
- Improved productivity
- Medication - related
- Patient identification
- Patient safety strategy
- Policies
- protocols and procedures
- User-centred design
- Workforce management
- Information sharing
- Staff engagement
- Training
- Time management
- Allergies
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Falls
- Parkinsons disease
- Substance / Drug abuse
- Urinary tract infections
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
- Benchmarking
- Dashboard
- Indicators
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NHS hospital staff spend countless hours capturing data in electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems. Yet that data remains difficult to access and use to support patient care. This is a tremendous opportunity to improve patient safety, drive efficiencies and save time for frontline staff. I have just published a post about this challenge and Triscribe's solution. I would love to hear any comments or feedback on the topic... How could we use this information better? What are hospitals already doing? Where are the gaps? Thanks- Posted
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- Climate change
- AI
- Digital health
- Innovation
- Interoperability
- Precision medicine
- Start-Up
- Safety assessment
- Safety behaviour
- Safety management
- Improved productivity
- Medication - related
- Patient identification
- Patient safety strategy
- Policies
- protocols and procedures
- User-centred design
- Workforce management
- Information sharing
- Staff engagement
- Training
- Time management
- Allergies
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Falls
- Parkinsons disease
- Substance / Drug abuse
- Urinary tract infections
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
- Benchmarking
- Dashboard
- Indicators
- Meta analysis
- Task analysis
- Workload analysis
- NRLS
- Policies / Protocols / Procedures
- Quality improvement
- Risk management
- Healthcare
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Content Article
This alert is for action by all those responsible for the use, purchase, prescription and maintenance of medical beds, trolleys, bed rails, bed grab handles and lateral turning devices including all Acute and Community healthcare organisations, care homes, equipment providers, Occupational Therapists and early intervention teams. From 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022, the MHRA received 18 reports of deaths related to medical beds, bed rails, trolleys, bariatric beds, lateral turning devices and bed grab handles, and 54 reports of serious injuries. The majority of these were due to entrapment or falls. Investigations into incidents involving falls often found the likely cause to be worn or broken parts, which should have been replaced during regular maintenance and servicing, but which were either not carried out or were carried out improperly. Actions required Update your organisation’s policies and procedures on procurement, provision, prescribing, servicing and maintenance of these devices in line with the MHRA’s updated guidance on the management and safe use of bed rails. Develop a plan for all applicable staff to have training relevant to their role within the next 12 months with regular updates. All training should be recorded. Review the medical device management system (inventory/database) for your organisation or third-party provider for devices within your organisation, including those which have been provided to a community setting (for example, the patient’s own home). Keep this system up to date. Implement maintenance and servicing schedules for the devices in the inventory/database, in line with the manufacturer’s instructions for use and/or service manual. Prioritise devices which have not had regular maintenance and servicing. If this is outsourced, compliance with the schedule should be monitored. Review patients who are children or adults with atypical anatomy as a priority. Ensure the equipment they have been provided with is compliant with BS EN 50637:2017 unless there is a reason for using a non-compliant bed. Record this on the risk assessment and put in place measures to reduce entrapment risks as far as possible. Review all patients who are currently provided with bed rails or bed grab handles to ensure there is a documented up-to-date risk assessment. Complete risk assessments for patients where this has not already been done and for each patient who is provided with bed rails or bed grab handles. Implement systems to update risk assessments where the equipment or the patient’s clinical condition has changed (for example, reduction/improvement in weight or mobility), and also at regular intervals.- Posted
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Content Article
Safety thermometer tool (NEQOS)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Quality Improvement
The aim of the NHS Safety Thermometer is to provide a local improvement tool for measuring, monitoring and analysing patient harms and ‘harm free care’. Data is collected by Trusts on pressure ulcers, falls, urinary tract infections (UTI), and Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) assessments, prophylaxis and treatment. The North East Quality Observatory Service (NEQOS) Safety Thermometer Tool allows trusts to compare themselves against their peers (for improvement purposes) as well as to undertake internal comparisons across different service areas within the Trust. Produced quarterly, the tool uses National Safety Thermometer data published by NHS Digital and presents this by Trust across the North East & North Cumbria (NENC) area, providing comparisons between peers as well as with the national average, with breakdowns by service areas for detailed analysis.- Posted
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Content Article
This report published by the National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) includes information on multi-factorial risk assessments and post fall management, and contains five recommendations as well as resources to support improvement.- Posted
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Content Article
Fundamental Care podcasts
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Recommended video and audio resources
Throughout this series of Fundamental Care podcasts, a panel of key opinion leaders and passionate healthcare staff from the UK will discuss and debate evidence based best practices at the core of the day-to-day challenges faced in healthcare, not only for patients but also for healthcare workers themselves. Panel introductions (25 April 2023) Safe patient handling (25 April 2023) Early mobilisation (23 June 2023) Hospital fall risk factors (25 September 2023) Prevention and management of hospital falls (10 October 2023) -
Content Article
This infographic by artist Sonia Sparkles highlights ways to prevent patient falls in hospital. A wide range of graphics relating to patient safety, healthcare and quality improvement is available on the Sonia Sparkles website.- Posted
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Content Article
Falls have a significant negative impact on the health and well-being of people with dementia and increase service costs related to staff time, paramedic visits, and accident and emergency (A&E) admissions. The author of this study, published in the Journal of Patient Safety, examined whether a remote digital vision-based monitoring and management system had an impact on the prevention of falls. -
News Article
A rise in hip fractures last year could be a symptom of a wider increase in general physical deconditioning in older and vulnerable people following the pandemic, senior clinicians have warned. Around 72,000 hip fractures were recorded in 2022 compared to 66,000 in 2020 and 67,000 in 2021, according to the 2023 National Hip Fracture Database report, published this month. The report, published by the Royal College of Physicians, said: “These additional hip fractures happened despite a fall in the size of the ‘at risk’ older population over the preceding three years, as a result of Covid-19-related mortality among older people and those living in care homes.” “Our casemix run chart shows a slight increase in the proportion of hip fractures occurring in people aged under 80. “This is perhaps an early indication of Public Health England’s [now the UK Health Security Agency] predictions that physical deconditioning and increased risk of falling due to the pandemic may lead to an increase in the number of people who are at risk of fragility fracture.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ. 25 September 2023 -
Content Article
This report is the Falls and Fragility Fractures Audit Programme's (FFFAP's) State of the Nation Report 2022 for Wales. It examines how the care of inpatient falls and fragility fractures has changed since 2020, highlighting what the audit reveals about the quality of patient care and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report used three sources of data and concludes with a number of recommendations around the care of people with hip fracture, preventing inpatient falls, and preventing future fractures. Key findings by data source National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) The number of hip fractures changed very little during the pandemic, so this is an ideal marker of the pandemic’s impact on the care of frail and older people and shows how successive waves of Covid-19 affected outcomes (mobility, return home, length of stay and mortality) in Wales. National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) There were approximately 12,500 inpatient falls in 2021. These led to: over 195 hip fractures loss of confidence and slower recovery distress to families and staff litigation against health boards. Fracture Liaison Service Database (FLS-DB) Based on 1,956 fragility fractures in 2020 and 2,033 fragility fractures in 2021, the number receiving FLS assessment within 12 weeks was similar in 2020 and 2021 (64% and 65% respectively).- Posted
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A repository of resources aimed at patients and carers which have been co-produced by the Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP) patient and carer panel. The resources below have been categorised into the three audits within FFFAP: National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) Fracture Liaison Service Database (FLS-DB) Hip fracture: a guide for families and carers All about your hip fracture and what to expect on the road to recovery Recovering after a hip fracture: helping people understand physiotherapy in the NHS How should your hospital prevent and respond falls during your stay Inpatient falls Falls prevention in hospital: a guide for parents, their families and carers What should happen if you or someone you know experiences a fragility fracture Six golden rules for stronger bones Strong bones after 50 - after staying on treatment- Posted
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Event
This Hospital at Night Summit focuses on out of hours care in hospitals delivering high quality safe care at night. Through national updates, networking opportunities and case studies this conference provides a practical guide to delivering a high quality hospital at night, and moving forward during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. The conference will also focus on improving staff well-being at night and reducing fatigue. Attending this conference will enable you to: Network with colleagues who are working to improve Hospital at Night Practice Learn from developments as a results of Covid-19 Improve your skills in the recognition management and escalation of deteriorating patients at night Understand and evaluate different models for Hospital at Night Examine the role of task management solutions for Hospital at Night, including handover and eObservations Ensuring effective and safe staffing at night, including adequate breaks Examine Hospital at Night team roles, competence and improve team working Improving safety through the reduction of falls at night Supporting staff and reducing fatigue at night Develop the role of Clinical Practitioner and Advanced Nursing Practice at night Identify key strategies to change practice and ways of working in Hospital at Night Understand how hospitals can improve conditions for night workers and support Junior Doctors Improve the management of pain at night Work across whole systems to improve support for patients out of hours Self assess and reflect on your own practice Gain CPD accreditation points contributing to professional development and revalidation Evidence Register There are a limited number of free places for hub members. Email: info@pslhuborg if interested. Follow on Twitter @HCUK_Clare #hospitalatnight- Posted
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Gavin Portier is Head of Nursing Quality at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. In this interview, Gavin explains how his approach to auditing has moved beyond measuring negative outcomes, instead focusing on standards of care. A year ago, you implemented a new approach to auditing at Barnsley. Can you tell us what prompted it? In healthcare, we tend to measure safety by looking at negatives. The number of falls, the number of category 2 pressure ulcers, the number of adverse events etc. Our whole system is built on it, from local auditing and Datix reporting, to CQC inspections. But counting the number of pressure ulcers for example, doesn’t really tell you about the standards of pressure ulcer care. I wanted to look at things differently; to focus more on the interventions and good practice that helps keep patients safe. Where did you start? We started with pressure ulcer reduction. Our Tissue Viability team and I looked at the learning from Root Cause Analyses and worked together to create a list of all of the things we can do to help prevent pressure ulcers. Skin assessments, pillow positioning, moving patients etc. If we ticked every box for every patient, would we prevent pressure ulcers altogether (unless the patient doesn’t follow the advice)? I took this list and worked with the digital app company, Perfect Ward to build a simple-to-use auditing tool. It allows us to measure safety by our standards of care and interventions rather than counting negative outputs. If our standards of care are high and a lot of people are still getting pressure ulcers, we have assurance on the standard of care being delivered. How did you implement the pressure ulcers audit? Once we had created the list of standards and preventative measures, we used the app to do an audit of around 35% of patients on each ward. At the start of the project, we found that teams were on average hitting 64% of the standards. The digital app provides a performance rating system, with red with red (less than 70%), amber (greater than 70% but less than 90%) and green (90% or more). The performance of the team against these ratings dictate how we would support each team moving forward. For example, if an audit showed a team to be performing at the lowest level (red), we made a commitment to support them on a weekly basis until they were performing at the highest level (green). How have staff responded? Staff have responded really well. This system provides recognition, and credit where credit is due. It can help staff to feel confident when they are providing high standards of care and to know that they are doing the right thing for the patients. Where there is room for improvement, the Perfect Ward app makes it is easy to see where the gaps in the delivery of interventions exist so they can be tackled. The tissue viability nurses are there to support, coach and to help problem solve. There may be certain interventions that are consistently missed which can sometimes be a sign that the wider organisation needs to help solve the issue. Safety is a shared responsibility, and we need to make sure we have the systems in place to support success. What support have you needed along the way? It’s really important to have passionate people who understand and believe in this approach to auditing. You need to have an Executive Team who are prepared to look at measuring outcomes differently. I’m lucky, our Director and Deputy Director of nursing are very supportive. It’s also important to acknowledge that it is not a silver bullet; change takes time. That can be frustrating for some people who want to see results quickly. It’s taken a year but teams are now hitting on average 94% of the standards set out by the auditing tool, and we are starting to see decreases in category 2 pressure ulcers (per 1000 bed days) since June 2020. What have you learnt? It has been really important to constantly engage staff and build good relationships, to make sure we understand everyone’s competing priorities. The approach has been a great enabler for quality improvement methodology, empowering teams to find their own solutions and really own the results. What’s next? This approach to auditing is not rocket science. It can be used to raise standards of care in most circumstances within health and social care – without focusing on the negatives. We have successfully applied it to both pressure ulcer and falls prevention at Barnsley and just started on nutrition and hydration. In the future I’d like to see it used in other areas, to identify what excellent dementia care in hospitals looks like for example. It could also be used to ensure that staff have a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act and safeguarding processes. Or to make sure patients are being well-fed. It really is just a blueprint that can be used to raise standards of care, and safety in any circumstance. Final thoughts? I personally don’t like to look at my work as reducing harm. I prefer to look at it in terms of improving the standards of care we give our patients. The difference is important. Photograph of the Tissue Viability Team. Above is an example of a checklist used for pressure sores. The graph above shows the trust average on delivery of the pressure ulcer prevention interventions across adult inpatient wards over a 12 month period. The 'distribution of score' graph above shows the percentages scored across the adult inpatient wards for each month over a 12 month period. This graph shows more areas achieving 90% (or more) and fewer scoring 70% or less as time has progressed. -
Content Article
Safe Steps technology
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Community care
Safe Steps Ltd creates digital web applications for UK care homes, local authorities and NHS trusts to help reduce falls for older people and residents.- Posted
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This YouTube channel contains video resources designed to raise awareness of falls and how to prevent them. The videos contain simple techniques to help prevent falls and promote healthy lifestyle choices. Videos include a daily 'Falls and management exercise class' and a weekly 'Functional Fitness MOT' for patients to use at home.- Posted
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On 24 March 2021, an investigation into the death of Hazel Fleur Wiltshire was opened. The conclusion of the inquest was that Mrs Wiltshire died from pneumonia caused by a fall and by COVID-19 that she acquired in hospital. The fall was caused by her trying to relieve herself without assistance in the context of long delays in answering calls bells at the time. Mrs Hazel Fleur Wiltshire was admitted to the Princess Royal University Hospital on 14 January 2021 following a fall at home. Although she had a number of factors indicating a risk of further falls, no risk assessments were completed on three wards and there was no evidence that measures that could mitigate the risk of falls were considered. Mrs Wiltshire's toileting care plan indicated that she was to be assisted with her toileting needs and she had access to a call bell. However, there were lengthy delays in responding to the call bell and on the night of 22 January 2021 she tried to relive herself without assistance which caused her to fall. She died in hospital on 19 February 2021 from pneumonia caused by the fall and by Covid 19 that she acquired in hospital. Coroner's concerns: The matron who gave evidence was not aware of obtaining data on response times from the call bell system and had not introduced any other system to monitor response times. Staffing levels were inadequate due to higher dependency of patients with Covid. I heard that one patient had to soil herself in her hand as no one was available to assist her with her toileting needs. Mrs Wiltshire phoned home on occasion to ask her family to call the ward because they were not responding to her call bell. The family could hear other patients on the ward crying out for help. Although Mrs Wiltshire was at risk of falls, no risk assessments were completed on any of the three wards in which she stayed. This suggests a systemic problem across the hospital that requires remedial action.- Posted
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In this short video, Associate Professor, Paediatric Podiatrist and Research Lead, Cylie Williams shares practical tips to help people wear their masks safely. Cylie talks about how to shape the mask effectively to different face shapes and how to prevent glasses from steaming up which can cause people to fall. These tips can be used by clinicians to trouble shoot with their patients if they see someone struggling with their mask. They can also be used by anyone looking for advice on how to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with wearing a mask. -
Content Article
Falls: applying All Our Health
Claire Cox posted an article in Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
Falls and fractures in older people are often preventable. Reducing falls and fractures is important for maintaining the health, wellbeing and independence of older people. A fall is defined as an event which causes a person to, unintentionally, rest on the ground or lower level, and is not a result of a major intrinsic event (such as a stroke) or overwhelming hazard. Having a fall can happen to anyone; it is an unfortunate but normal result of human anatomy. However, as people get older, they are more likely to fall over. Falls can become recurrent and result in injuries including head injuries and hip fractures. This guidance set out by Public Health England explains how patients/the public and clinicians can mitigate falls. -
Content Article
RightCare Pathway: Falls and Fragility Fractures
Claire Cox posted an article in Patient management
The Falls and Fragility Fractures Pathway defines the core components of an optimal service for people who have suffered a fall or are at risk of falls and fragility fractures.The Falls and Fragility Fractures Pathway has been developed in collaboration with the National Clinical Director for Musculoskeletal Services, Peter Kay, Public Health England (PHE), the National Osteoporosis Society (NOS) and a range of other stakeholders from across the health and care system. The pathway defines the key interlocking components for an optimal system for prevention and management and the priority higher value interventions that systems should focus on to address variation, improve outcomes, reduce cost and contribute toward a sustainable NHS. -
Content Article
The objective of this study was to to report the frequency of adverse events (AEs) that occurred during the months when SARS-CoV-2 spreading rate was at its highest in the Italian nursing homes, and to identify which conditions and attributes were most associated with the occurrence of AEs. Authors note that future recommendations for the management and care of residents in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic should include specific statements for the most vulnerable populations, such as people with dementia. This research paper can be viewed in full via the link below to the Frontiers in Psychiatry website.- Posted
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