Falls assessments are a ‘must’ for care home residents, says Royal Pharmaceutical Society

On average, older residents in UK care homes fall from two to six times a year

The document looks at how care homes for older people can be improved. Every resident should have a falls assessment on admission with regular follow-ups, it says.

On average, residents in UK care homes fall from two to six times a year, according to the findings. The good news, however, is that interventions designed to reduce falls are effective, provided they are coordinated by multidisciplinary teams, it says.

A key recommendation is that residents’ safety could be improved if clinical information was shared more easily between GPs, pharmacists and other care providers.

Another is that every care home should have a pharmacist with responsibility for how medicines are used. The report says that £135 million a year could be saved if pharmacists intervened by having regular medicine reviews, for example.

According to the document, there are 405,000 care home residents in the UK aged over 65, with approximately 97 per cent taking at least one prescription medicine.

Meanwhile, the CSP’s Cost of falls information shows how physiotherapy can prevent falls and produce huge savings for the NHS. The information covers all regions of the UK.