Fire Service rescuing residents who have fallen in their homes
Fire Service staff are coming to the aid of residents who have fallen in their homes as part of a new service aiming to cut ambulance waits and avoid hospital stays.
The Falls Response Team has helped more than 100 people needing assistance in getting back on their feet or into a chair within just two months.
The scheme has proved so successful since it was launched six months ago that funding has been approved for another six months, a fire service performance meeting heard on Wednesday, May 10.
This means Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service will be able to continue assisting ambulance and NHS services in responding to patients who have fallen but have not suffered any injuries.
Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones Chief Medical Officer for the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) said: “I’m delighted this new initiative has got off to such a positive start with glowing patient feedback. Falls are one of the leading causes of avoidable hospital admissions.
“Very often the damage is done by not being able to get back to your feet and lying on the ground for an extended time, not the initial fall.
"Fire and Rescue Officers already do a great deal to make sure people live in safe homes and this is a valuable extension of this work that is already reducing harm and helping with demand on NHS services.”
The NHS must be contacted in the usual way for this assistance however and residents have been urged not to call the fire service directly if they have had a fall.
"West Midlands Ambulance Service will continue to receive calls and provide clinical triage via 999 and the NHS 111 service to ensure patients are given the appropriate care for their needs.
If the Falls Response Team can assist they will attend to the patient, using their training and specialist equipment.
The team, which works on a rota basis between 8am and 8pm seven days a week, can also provide basic first aid and advice on home fire safety, as well as signposting residents to other organisations that can offer support.
Chief Fire Officer Rob Barber told Wednesday’s meeting: “It launched on December t and it was a pilot for six months. It’s going from strength to strength and I’ve just been informed last week that they want to extend that pilot to 12 months.
“We’ve currently got Chester University doing the formal evaluation on it, but I don’t need Chester University to tell me it’s a really good thing.
I’m getting feedback on a regular basis from the families of the people who have fallen and had the service delivered to them.
“If you’ve had a fall and you haven’t got an injury that requires you to attend A&E or go into primary care, you’ll be on the bottom of the list and might be lying on the floor for 10, 18, 20 hours.
"By that time, particularly for elderly people, you’re going to have some complication that does mean you need a hospital bed.
“If we can take those low level incidents, we can apply a resource to it, people don’t have to go into hospital, they don’t get a worsening condition, they stay in their own home and they stay with their families. That’s what the ultimate aim of the falls response is.
“The team are doing a fantastic job. They’ve got the equipment, they’ve got the vehicle and they’re also doing other aspects for our health partners as well and they’ve been delivering some of the antiviral medicine throughout the pandemic and beyond.
“The Fire Minister last week was really keen to hear about this because we can have such an impact in terms of those vulnerable members of the community.
"Our team have also been delivering a fire safety visit if they’ve been out to a fall at that premise and to family members as well, so that spread of resource has been really positive and seen some really good outcomes from that work.”
Staffordshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Ben Adams said: “I couldn’t be more delighted really. It’s pure rescue, helping vulnerable people and it’s in the badge.
“Rescuing people in this way is not only massively advantageous to them, it helps the ambulance service, it helps the NHS more widely and means you’re having a conversation afterwards with those who are most vulnerable.
“I met with the staff who are doing this, for them it was why wouldn’t we? It’s an expansion of our professional capability and it’s what we come to work for, to look after people.”
