Don't stop moving: optimising safety while staying active in hospital is the sixth annual report of the continuous National Audit of Inpatient Falls (NAIF) covers England and Wales clinical audit data from 1 January to 31 December 2023.
The latest report collates data around 4 KPIs:
- KPI 1: High-quality multifactorial assessment to optimise safe activity (MASA)
- KPI 2: Check for injury before moving
- KPI 3: Safe lifting equipment used to move the patient from the floor
- KPI 4: Medical assessment within 30 minutes of the fall that caused the inpatient femoral fractures.
The NAIF team has provided 5 recommendations to reduce the risk of falls and improve care.
- Trusts and health boards should review their policies and practice to ensure that older hospital inpatients are enabled to be as active as possible.
- NHS England and the Welsh Government should implement national drivers to ensure that all older people are screened for delirium upon hospital admission using the 4AT and reviewed for changes suggestive of a new onset of delirium for the duration of their admission.
- Trusts and health boards should ensure that there are robust governance processes in place to understand when post-fall checks fail to correctly identify a fall related injury’.
- Trusts and health boards should have processes in place to hasten time to administration of analgesia after an injurious fall, to ensure patients who sustain a femoral fracture in hospital are given analgesia within 30 minutes of falling.
- Trusts and health boards are encouraged to prepare for the audit expansion in January 2025.
NAIF clinical lead Dr Julie Whitney will be leading the discussion around the latest annual report and how to get your organisation ready for the expansion in January 2025.
Trust/Health board (HB) reports
We are currently working on a separate trust/HB report for all participating organisations. When the individual reports are ready, we will send an update around to let you know how to view it.
In the meantime, please refer to the live KPI dashboards for the latest figures.