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Falls

Falls are a common cause of harm for people in hospital. The Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) led a breakthrough series collaborative from 2021-2024, which achieved a 9% national reduction in the rate of falls in acute hospitals.

Sustained improvement in the rate of falls was achieved in 5 of the 13 participating NHS Scotland health boards.

Reducing falls: what works?

NHS Scotland health boards with a sustained reduction in their rate of falls identified contributors to their success. The key themes centred on the SPSP Essentials of Safe Care* including:

  • Visible leadership to support a culture of safety*
  • Team engagement in understanding and using ward level data
  • Person centred approaches to care*
  • Multidisciplinary team working*
  • Shifting culture from preventing falls to promoting safer mobility

For further detail and change ideas, please see:

In this video NHS Ayrshire and Arran highlight key learning from their falls improvement work.

Falls with harm

Across NHS Scotland there are differences in the definitions of a fall with harm. Because of these differences it was not appropriate to aggregate the falls with harm data in a national chart.

There were sustained reductions in the rate of falls with harm in four health boards, and an increased rate of falls with harm in three boards.

Changes in rates of falls with harm did not consistently track changes in all falls.

Next steps

With the support of the SPSP collaborative, teams across Scotland have made important progress in reducing the rate of falls in hospital. Their achievements have been delivered with a backdrop of COVID-19 and significant system pressure.

Despite demonstrable improvement, falls continue to be among the most common adverse events reported in acute hospitals across Scotland. Healthcare Improvement Scotland remains committed to working in partnership with NHS Scotland health boards to reduce falls.

For more information please find our falls highlights report here and the full impact report here.

If you are interested in joining our learning system please contact us at his.acutecare@nhs.scot

 

Additional falls reduction driver diagram and change package resources can be found below:

 

Equality impact assessment

To ensure everyone can benefit regardless of their characteristics or where they access care, we completed an Equality Impact Assessment. This highlights key equality issues that were considered and any actions we took in relation to them. Please contact the Acute Care team if you would like to view a copy of this at his.acutecare@nhs.scot.

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