Medline UK partners with East Kent Hospitals University Foundation NHS Trust to prevent falls in accident and emergency (A&E)
3 rd February 2022
Over this past year, falls rates have been on the rise at East Kent Hospitals A&E, in part, due to the rising numbers of patients. Jayne Flood, Falls Prevention Lead at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation NHS Trust, worked with Medline UK to find a solution.
Quickly assessing falls risk in the A&E environment is challenging for staff, and previously, signage above a patient’s bed had been used to alert staff about potential falls risk, but proved ineffective. This is because patients are often moved to different departments, and the signs can easily fall off the wall or other equipment. They were looking for a more eye-catching solution.
They opted for Medline’s Falls Prevention Kits. These contain a bright yellow fleece blanket and treaded falls prevention slipper socks. These kits are designed to stay with the patient for the duration of their stay in hospital and can even go home with them. Any patient deemed a falls risk would receive one of these kits.
The results have been promising. The number of falls in A&E amongst high-risk patients issued a kit dropped to 0. You can learn more about this study in our partner blog post, and more about Medline’s falls prevention programme here.
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