What we are doing
The national audit of falls and bone health examined services provided to older people for falls prevention and bone health.
The national audit of falls and bone health was a programme of work which examined:
- The commissioning of services provided to older people for falls prevention and bone health
- The clinical care delivered to people
- Patient’s experiences of falls services
More information about the current Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme can be found on the FFFAP pages.
National audit of falls and bone health
The national audit of falls and bone health in older people was commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP). Organisational audits were carried out in 2005 and 2008. A clinical audit was carried out in 2007.
In 2010 both an organisational and clinical audit were performed together. Information on nearly 10,000 patients came from all NHS Acute Trusts, or equivalent, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as Primary Care Organisations, Mental Health Trusts, and a sample of care homes. The report Falling standards, broken promises is available to download.
Patient and public involvement work
As part of the series of audits of services for falls and bone health in older people the RCP carried out a number of projects which focused on patient involvement. The projects were developed to gather patient’s experiences and opinions of the services they received.
Our 2011 report Older people’s experiences of therapeutic exercise as part of a falls prevention service 2011 is available to download. It summarises results from a postal questionnaire which asked about older people’s experiences of therapeutic exercise, and asked staff about exercise provision in NHS trusts around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Inpatient falls pilot audit
This large-scale pilot audit focused on falls prevention for inpatients, and the care provided following an inpatient fall. It aimed to test the feasibility of auditing falls prevention and post-falls care in hospital settings: acute hospitals, community hospitals and mental health units by looking at staffing, policies and the reporting of falls. It also examined the clinical care patients received through bedside observation and case note review. The 2011 inpatient pilot audit report is now available to download.
The methodology and dataset for the National Audit of Inpatient Falls was developed following this pilot audit.
