Urgent Community Response Falls service for Coventry
Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust (CWPT) is delighted to announce a new Urgent Community Response Falls service for Coventry, which will attend patients who have fallen and are unable to get up unaided or have suffered minor injury. Patients who have fallen will also be fully assessed to reduce the possibility of falls in the future.
The service will reduce the duration of time the patient spends on the floor, with the service operating as an alternative to ambulance call outs. This in turn will help reduce demand on ambulance services, while ensuring the patient’s safety is kept paramount. The service will be referred into by NHS 111 and 999.
Having a fall can happen to anyone, but it is something that can have a serious impact on the elderly. Falls can become recurrent and result in serious injuries, such as head injuries and hip fractures. Approximately 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65 and half of people over 80 will have at least one fall a year.
According to a survey conducted by Age UK in 2019, falls are the most common cause of injury related deaths in people over the age of 75 with over 5,000 older people dying as a result of a fall in 2017, a 70% increase since 2010.
In around 5% of cases, falls lead to a fracture or hospitalisation, with hip fractures alone accounting for 1.8 million hospital bed days and an astonishing £1.1 billion in hospital costs every year, with this figure not including the cost of social care.
Falls are classified as a Category 3 or 4 call by the ambulance service in the U.K., and with 90% of Category 4 calls in May 2021 being responded to in 5 hours and 33 minutes (Nuffield Trust), this new Urgent Community Response Falls service will help reduce these figures in the Coventry and Warwickshire area.
Patients will be passed to the service if they meet the Urgent Community Response Falls service criteria after having been assessed by staff in the 999 and 111 services. The criteria for the service include whether the patient is suffering no obvious bone injury or minor wounds. If the injuries meet the criteria then the patient will be transferred to the Community Urgent Response Team where they will receive a comprehensive telephone assessment in order to determine the appropriate treatment, in a timely and effective manner.
Mel Coombes MBE, CEO of Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust believes the new service will benefit both patients and the NHS alike:
“As well as reducing the amount of time patients are waiting for an emergency response, the service will also cut down risk of future falls, as they will be assessed at home. One of the main aims of the service is treat in the community.
“This is service will operate by a ‘no wrong door’ approach, where we will ensure fall patients receive the right emergency response within the 2-hour window. This service will expand in 2022 to help provide urgent care in the community for anyone over the age of 75.”