Home Instead Yeovil Leads the Way in Reducing Wait Times for Specialist Frailty Assessment
Direct access to falls clinic from community care aims to improve health outcomes for older people- Read more about our new service offering!
Home Instead Yeovil, Sherborne & Bridport is the first home care provider in England to be involved in a new service that aims to reduce wait times for people who need a specialist frailty assessment. A carer who is worried about a client having more falls, can refer directly to the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Hospital at Home (H@H) frailty team rather than having to request a GP review first. The initiative aims to ensure that people who need urgent support can be seen within one week, rather than having to wait the 8–10-week typical timeframe. The idea is that through empowering carers to raise the alarm about someone they support on a regular basis, the NHS – H@H frailty team can respond quickly and potentially before a deteriorating situation becomes a crisis.
The H@H frailty service which has been in operation since 2022 is a one-stop shop for multi-professional care that includes doctors, advanced clinical practitioners, pharmacists, nurses, and therapists. A holistic approach underpins their Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) that is the gold standard for frailty.
The term frailty is defined as a health state related to the ageing process that gradually weakens different body systems, meaning that there is overall less health resilience. In practice it means that a relatively ‘minor’ infection could have a severe impact due to impaired recovery. Frailty is often characterised by issues such as reduced muscle strength, fatigue, and poor mobility. Frailty is not the same as living with multiple long-term health conditions, although there is often an overlap.
Despite popular belief, falls are not an expected consequence of getting older, they can be an indicator of worsening frailty. As falls are one of the leading causes of emergency hospital admissions for older people, more focus within the NHS is being directed towards proactive, preventative care. For social care to now be part of this plan is a much needed and welcome development according to Home Instead Yeovil director Dr Mark Hunt. “We have trained carers to use the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) that is widely utilised in the NHS, and which uses falls as one of the key indicators. I know from my own experience as a GP, what an important tool it is to aid decision making around health and wellbeing. We support people in their own homes across the spectrum of the CFS 1 to 9 scale that ranges from those that are very fit to people who are approaching the end of their lives. The fact that people have care needs, is indicative of the vulnerable population that we support. The Clinical Frailty Score helps us to document a starting point from which we can then monitor change. The system we now have in place means that our team recognise that a CFS of 4 or 5 (moderate frailty) equates to an increased risk of hospital admission and this triggers the referral process”.
Better integration of health and social care is currently at the forefront of public discourse due to an ageing population and increasing demand on stretched resources. Evidence points to joined up working between care systems leading to improved health outcomes.
Lily Humby is an advanced nurse practitioner with the Somerset NHS – H@H frailty team, she has seen first-hand how patients who are often vulnerable at the outset, suffer when there are delays in the system. “Professional curiosity has guided this collaboration; I am excited to integrate with Home instead and start providing preventative care for patients.”
It is hoped that this partnership approach will demonstrate how better communication between health and social care organisations can reduce crisis admissions to hospital. The goal is to set a new benchmark for what it is possible to achieve within community care.
For more information about the referral project and our home care services, contact us today!
