Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) today publish their Review of Integrated Care for falls amongst people over 65 in Wales
The report makes eight recommendations for improvement.
Published today, this review has found that there needs to be a shift in culture led by the everyday behaviours of everyone involved in falls prevention and care to achieve the person-centred care that puts what matters to the individual first.
Falls are a common problem amongst older people, with 1 in 3 people over 65 likely to suffer a fall in the next 12 months. That number rises to 1 in 2 in those over 80.
Falls can lead to serious physical and psychological consequences for the older person and treatment and reablement are costly.
Findings:
- HIW found that services could work better together to prevent falls amongst older people and to treat and re-able them following a fall.
- It recommends that there should be a national falls framework for Wales, to standardise the approach to preventing, treating and re-abling older people who are at risk of falling or have already fallen.
- The review makes eight recommendations for the Welsh Government, health boards and local authorities and contains findings for any organisation that works with older people to consider.
- It also recommends that each health board should work closely with local authorities in their area, to produce a local pathway for falls that can be flexible to the needs of the individual, whilst also being consistent with a national framework.
The full review is available on HIW website (External link)