Our Falls Vision | Stop all ambulance call-outs to minor and non-injury falls

Falls are one of the biggest challenges faced by the health and care system in this country. Ambulance services continue to be relied on for responding to falls, reducing their ability to respond to higher-priority calls and worsening the outcomes for patients.

Many organisations are now using the Felgains Falls Solution to enable non-ambulance resources to respond to falls, improving system pressure and patient outcomes.

1. The Problem

2. The Solution

3. The Raizer Chair

4. Recent projects

5. Your trusted partner

6. Our Falls Vision

The Problem

In the UK, a third of people over 65 and half of people over 80 fall at least once a year. This means that every year in the UK, at least 5 million people will experience at least one fall.

People who have fallen, but not sustained any injuries, are usually triaged as ‘Category 4’, so they will typically wait hours for help. Ambulance callout times are currently at record high levels, further increasing the length of time a fallen person will be waiting on the floor. More than one hour on the floor is called a ‘long lie’, and this is associated with serious complications, such that even if there was no initial injury from the fall, the long lie will cause harm.

Falls are the number one reason older people are taken to the emergency department at hospital. There are around 255,000 falls-related emergency hospital admissions in England among patients aged 65 and over each year.

And the cost to the NHS? Falls are estimated to cost the NHS more than £2.3 billion per year…

The Solution

NHS organisations, ICSs, Ambulance Trusts, UCR and Falls Response teams across the country are implementing HelpFall and Raizer Lifting Chairs to reduce ambulance callouts and hospital admissions, improve the patient and staff experience, and reduce system cost and pressure.

Reduce Ambulance Callouts and Hospital Admissions

By using non-ambulance resources such as CFRs or UCR Teams to respond to non-injury and minor injury falls, Ambulances can get to category 1 and 2 callouts sooner.

By getting to fallers quicker and treating them at their home or care home, the likelihood of a hospital admission is greatly reduced, easing current hospital capacity challenges.

Improve the patient and staff experience

Getting the fallen person up from the floor in a quick and dignified manner makes it a more comfortable and less stressful experience for the faller, and makes it an easier task for the staff to carry out confidently and competently.

By doing this, the risk of damage is minimised and the faller has the best chance of maintaining a good quality of life.

Reduce System Cost and Pressure

Treating fallen persons quickly and at their home or in their care home greatly reduces the risk of hospital admission and the resulting costs and deconditioning.

By preventing the costs of hospital admissions and emergency callouts, organisations can reduce the pressure on stretched services and save significant amounts.

HelpFall - The new standard in post-fall decision-making

HelpFall is a digital post-fall decision-making tool that supports care staff in safely assessing a fallen person and helps them decide whether to lift them from the floor using safe manual handling techniques and equipment.

Developed in association with South Western Ambulance Service (SWAST), HelpFall asks a few short questions so care staff can check if the person has new injuries or symptoms. HelpFall uses a traffic light system to categorise the falls and suggest what actions care staff should take based on their answers.

Find out more

The Raizer Lifting Chair

The Raizer is a motorised lifting chair that assembles around a fallen person and lifts them up to a seated or perching position. It is easy to assemble and use for the caregiver, and it is safe, smooth and very reassuring for the fallen person.

- Ease of use means that staff will actually use it – and want to use it!
- Minimal moving & handling makes it safe for the caregiver and easy to do single-handedly
- Smooth and quiet action reassures the fallen person, minimising the emotional stress of a fall and being lifted up again

Find out more

Recent falls projects

Felgains as your trusted partner

One Complete Solution

Felgains can help you through the whole process, from identifying the need all the way to full rollout and follow up

Training

We book and deliver face to face training to every team leader or manager, along with a bespoke training video

Data Monitoring

Our team has the ability to assist with the data monitoring and tracking of the project

ICB Falls Projects: your 8 most common questions answered

We work with a lot of ICBs on falls projects, and as you can imagine, we get lots of different questions about how to implement the project and what factors to consider.

Using our knowledge and experience, in this video we answer the 8 most common questions we get about ICB falls projects.