A week-long focus on preventing patient falls is being held across Walsall Manor Hospital’s elderly care wards with a host of activities and information to help families and staff prevent harm.
Falls Awareness Week runs from Monday 16 to Friday 20 September and Nursing leaders have devised a five day programme to cover all aspects of factors that can lead to falls and raise awareness of what can be done to avoid them.
Falls can happen for a number of reasons including limited mobility, certain health conditions, poor vision, delirium, and muscle weakness. They can impact patients physically and psychologically and increase lengths of stay in hospital, affecting people’s confidence.
Walsall’s week-long initiative, taking place across Wards 1-4 from 1pm-4pm, will feature:
- Motivation Monday – Keep Moving, Muscle Strength and Balance, Postural Hypotension
- Tuned in Tuesday- Sensory Deficits
- Wellbeing Wednesday- Nutrition and Hydration
- Time Out Thursday – Supporting patients, carers and staff with Cognitive Disorders
- Footwear Friday
Jo Adams, Professional Lead for Quality at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Our Falls Awareness Week programme will encourage patients, their families and staff to consider the many factors that can be considered to avoid falls and to prevent harm.
“We will be looking at the importance of our Eat, Drink, Dress and Move to Improve (EDDMI) initiative, nutrition and hydration, mouth care and cognitive disorders throughout our week-long focus.”
The programme of activities which has been put together for Monday and Tuesday includes chair exercises, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy activities geared towards maintaining mobility, free hearing tests, checks for hearing aids and batteries and glasses care.
An afternoon tea will be the highlight of Wellbeing Wednesday highlighting nutrition and hydration with an opportunity for families and carers to be given useful advice and information.
On the Thursday, Pets as Therapy dogs will visit the wards along with the Trist’s choir and Chaplaincy Team and volunteer groups will spend time talking to and reading to patients. On Friday, the emphasis will be on safe footwear to help prevent falls and a slipper swap has been arranged to trade old, worn slippers for new, well-fitting ones, with Podiatry and Chiropody teams visiting patients.
Deb Mason, Quality Facilitator for the Trust, added: “We’re looking forward to Falls Awareness Week and working with families and carers, alongside our own teams, to play our part in keeping patients safe – at hospital and at home. Our focus will continue well beyond the week itself as this is such a critical issue and we need to ensure we’re all doing what we can to avoid such incidents.”
The week is being supported by Walsall Healthcare’s Well Wishers charity too which has provided:
- Packs for each patient to include hand cream, a snack, pen, puzzle book, toothpaste and toothbrush set and glasses cleaning wipes
- Personal box for each patient for their dentures, glasses and hearing aids
- A tea towel for patients with falls prevention tips on them
- Denture boxes donated by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Branch, Walsall, and glasses wipes from Poundland
The charity will also provide afternoon tea.