Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership and Greater Manchester Combined Authority have secured a £100,000 grant to help reduce hospital admissions through early interventions with populations identified as at-risk for falls, following estimations that approximately 10,000 people aged over 65 in Greater Manchester injure themselves in falls every year, which “can lead to serious injuries, admission to hospital or a move into long-term care”.
In a new data-driven approach, the Greater Manchester Falls Collaborative will work to identify where pre-emptive support could make a difference, thanks to increased sharing of patient data across the health and care system.
As part of Falls Prevention Week, Greater Manchester will be hosting “bitesize learning sessions”, designed for those working in “falls-related fields”, or those with lived experience of falls. This will feature the latest research in falls prevention, along with case studies in best practice from a number of localities.
Warren Heppolette, chief officer for strategy & innovation at NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care, said: “Many falls, or the effects of those falls, might have been prevented with timely intervention, and this new project aims to do just that. The Greater Manchester Care Record has been a great success in joining up patient information from NHS and care services in order to help frontline health and care workers to save lives, and we expect it will repeat this success with our falls prevention work. Now, just as the colder months start, we are able to use this information to ensure we can reduce the needless falls which rank as the second leading cause of death and disability among older adults nationally, behind road traffic incidents.”
Initially, the programme will focus on Wigan, before being rolled out to the whole Greater Manchester region.
In other news from Greater Manchester, the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership recently published their new strategy for the next five years, assessing how it will meet some of the biggest challenges facing contemporary healthcare systems.
