Implementing Action Falls

We’re really excited to help health and social care staff prevent falls in Care Homes using Action Falls.

When it comes to preventing falls in Care Homes, Action Falls is best practice. Using Action Falls reduced the rate of falls per year by 43%. However, from our research and clinical experience, we understand that changing practice takes time and is not just the responsibility of the Care Homes. There are a lot of people and organisations involved in supporting residents in Care Homes, which can create additional challenges. But, this also can mean there are many people who can provide support to help Care Home staff prevent falls.

Remember, preventing falls is everyone’s business! So if you want to start reducing falls using the best practice of Action Falls in your Care Home, here’s how to get started.

1. Training for all. 

Care home staff should be trained by trainers who are knowledgeable about falls risk assessment in care homes and falls prevention.  Training should be built around the use of case studies and group discussion.

At least 50% of care home staff should receive this training, regardless of job role.

Action Falls training can only be provided by an Action Falls Lead. The best place to see if there are any Action Falls Leads in your area is to contact your local Health and Social Care Teams.

If there aren’t any yet, any registered nurse or allied health professional who provides support to Care Homes in preventing falls can complete our Train the Trainer E-Learning. This will enable them to start training staff in the Care Home. We’re looking at ways we can offer the Action Falls Lead training to Care Home managers, but this is still in development.

2. Support from knowledgeable Falls Leads beyond the initial training

Trainers should be available to care home staff and management beyond the initial training to offer support and problem-solving.

The React to Falls website and app can also be used to support staff knowledge outside of training sessions.

3. Falls are everybody’s business

All staff need to understand their role in preventing falls, which is supported by training and the culture within the care home.

4. A multifactorial falls risk assessment identifies risks for each individual resident

In line with the World Falls and NICE guidelines, every resident has a multifactorial falls risk assessment which covers areas such as: falls history, nutrition and fluid intake, medication, environment and pain.

5. Each resident has an individualised action plan to mitigate fall risks.

Each risk factor identified in the assessment should then be addressed by specific actions to mitigate these risks. This should be in the form of an action plan, which staff can sign off as each individual action is completed. Some Actions may require referral or support from external health and social care teams.

In an ideal world, everyone would use the Action Falls Assessment and Actions Checklist for pillars 4 and 5. We’re in conversation with digital care record providers to integrate the Action Falls Assessment and Actions Checklist into current offerings, but this is proving a little trickier than anticipated. However, the more Care Homes that ask about adding Action Falls, the more likely we are to be able to enact this much-needed change!

6. Regular, blame-free discussions around falls prevention take place among care home teams.

Action Falls has shown that teams that have regular conversations about fall prevention are more successful in preventing falls. These conversations can happen at team meetings or at informal falls ‘huddles.’

Action Falls and falls prevention are about more than completing a risk assessment. Action Falls is about taking actions in relation to that assessment and maintaining a culture where falls are everyone’s business. This is how we reduce falls and improve quality.