Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - Fall prevention service

Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, together with Helpforce, Kingston Upon Thames Falls Prevention Service, Your Healthcare, the community health provider for Kingston Upon Thames and Kingston Council's Bone Health Service, have established a new partnership project co-ordinated across Kingston Upon Thames which operates through professionals, volunteers and patients working collaboratively across acute, secondary and tertiary care.

The service, Falls Prevention: Community Exercise Programme is helping elderly residents discharged home from the acute hospital setting, to maintain their independence by matching trained volunteers to people who need support to complete personalised prescribed exercises following a fall or other injury and resulting admission to hospital.

Kingston Hospital inpatient physiotherapists identify a cohort of patients who are referred to the falls prevention / bone health waiting lists across Kingston Upon Thames who require low level support with physiotherapy exercises and regaining their confidence to mobilise, enable independence and proactively engage with services and support in their community. Typically, these patients may have had some rehabilitation support before leaving hospital whilst on an inpatient ward, but often face a long wait, currently up to 12 months in the borough of Kingston Upon Thames, once they got home due to the size of the waiting list, during which time their condition might worsen, putting them at risk of deconditioning and the harm and challenges associated with this. In some cases, this could lead to multiple hospital visits and pressure on LAS after falling at home.

Through this service, designed in collaboration with Helpforce, Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Community Physiotherapists, Falls Prevention Service, Bone Health Services, Volunteers and patients, volunteers from Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust can spend up to eight weeks supporting patients at home by helping them to complete their exercises safely. All the volunteers are equipped with lone worker devices and receive full training before working with patients.

Many of these frail patients live alone, and as well as the practical support of improving balance and muscle tone, there is a social and emotional benefit in having regular contact and a reason to get up and about. The programme is actively measuring the impact of the service, with extremely promising early results. When the eight weeks finishes, volunteers also ensure that the person they are working with has access to other sources of support within the community, which is particularly important at a time when isolation and loneliness are an increasing concern. This is a fantastic example of co-creating innovative solutions across organisational boundaries that have a genuine benefit for the people we care for.

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