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News

20/11/19

20 November 2019

Falls Prevention in Hospital

The National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) is a clinically led, web-based audit of patients who sustain a hip fracture due to a fall within an inpatient setting. NAIF operates at trust level and calls for participation from all acute, mental health, community and specialist trusts in England and Wales.Collected data is used to review participating trusts' performance in preventing inpatient falls against the NICE guideline (CG161) on falls assessment and prevention. Since its introduction in 2015, data has been used to develop multiple resources which can be used for quality improvement.

Quality Improvement Resources for Falls Prevention in Hospital 

  • The Falls Prevention in Hospital: a Guide for Patients, their Families and Carers is a jargon free patient-focussed booklet offering information about care standards and fall prevention methods.
  • The bedside vision check has been created by the Royal College fo Physicians (RCP) in collaboration with medical professionals with expertise in vision and eye health.  Although not intended to replace expert clinical assessment, it can alert ward staff to potential concerns that can then be relayed to medical teams for further evaluation.
  • The lying and standing blood pressure guide aims to enable ward staff to detect a drop in blood pressure (BP) on standing (orthostatic hypotension – OH ), a common occurrence in acutely unwell hospitalised patients a risk factor for falls. A user-friendly lanyard card has proved extremely popular amongst ward staff and is free to download a print locally.
  • The multi-factorial risk assessment (MFRA) guide identifies factors known to increase the risk of falls with the intention that action or an intervention is prompted to minimise these risks. The MFRA in question is specific to the scope of NAIF. Other MFRAs may be more exhaustive in terms of rsik factors and assessment.