How Ashley Care are improving falls outcomes in the community through using HelpFall and Raizer Chairs
Case Study at a Glance
Ashley Care provides a Telecare First Responder Service as well as a Domiciliary Care service for Southend City Council and other individuals within the Southend-on-Sea community, caring for elderly individuals with either mental or physical care needs.
The majority of individuals cared for by Ashley Care are elderly individuals, with most suffering from mobility issues, and as a result, the number of falls and fall-related incidents was high. Without an alternative in place, Ashley Care was relying on emergency services to respond to all falls, resulting in disruption to their service and poor outcomes for fallers in the community.
By upskilling their team to offer falls response, utilising Raizer Lifting Chairs alongside the HelpFall Assessment Tool, Ashley Care has taken the burden of falls off the emergency services, reducing ambulance callouts by 76% and bringing significant benefits to both their clients and their service.
The Case Study Video
The Headline Stats
The Challenge: Poor outcomes from falls in the community and disruption to services
Due to the health and mobility challenges of the individuals Ashley Care’s Dom Care service cared for, they were experiencing a large number of callouts to falls and fall-related incidents amongst their clients.
In line with Southend City Council’s policy, Ashley Care had to attend to the fallen person and, in most cases, subsequently call the emergency services or the Urgent Community Response Team. Due to the system pressures on the ambulance service and wider healthcare system, the average waiting time for a non-injurious fall is as much as 10 hours.
As well as the increased harm that fallen persons were experiencing due to waiting on the floor for an extended period, the fallen individual had to be supported by a member of the Ashley Care team whilst waiting for the ambulance, leading to disruption to their service and putting strain on their staffing levels.
“Our service was under unpredictable pressure when an individual had fallen as we had to deploy a senior member of the out-of-hours or response team.”
Charles Cross, Director, Ashley Care
In addition to the pressure that falls were putting on Ashley Care, Southend City Council and the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System were also experiencing significant costs and disruption, due to the frequency of ambulance callouts to falls and subsequent admissions from long lies.
The Solution: Offering falls response through utilising HelpFall and Raizer chairs
Ashley Care first came across the Raizer chair through the local ambulance service, and they were officially introduced to the Raizer chair and HelpFall assessment tool by an innovation programme lead within the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System.
Once Ashley Care had purchased the Raizer Chairs and HelpFall post-fall assessment tool, a member of the Felgains team came to each of the Ashley Care offices for training. This involved senior members of the team that were going to be using the Raizer Chairs.
“The training was extremely clear and informative which gave our team the confidence to assess whether we can lift someone as well as lifting someone using the Raizer Chair.”
Charles Cross, Director, Ashley Care
After the training had been completed in collaboration with Ashley Care’s senior leadership team, which includes ex-paramedics, Ashley Care devised a policy and procedure for the safe use of the equipment. This process allows them to ensure they are safeguarding their team and the person that is going to be lifted.
For each lift, an Ashley Care staff member completes the HelpFall assessment tool which indicates whether it is safe to lift the fallen individual. Once it’s determined that the individual is safe to lift, the Raizer Chair is used to lift the fallen person and the relevant healthcare service is notified. Depending on the individual’s needs, this could include the Urgent Community Response Team, GP, District Nurses, Social Worker or other healthcare services. Each lift is documented and increased monitoring is undertaken during future visits.
The Impact and Results
Ashley Care now has multiple Raizer Chairs which enhances their offering to the individuals they respond to and the wider Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System. They have been able to lift 91% of the falls attended within the Telecare Service, which is preventing a significant amount of ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions.
“The impact that this project has made on Ashley Care is incredible! We have been able to lift on average, 3 people per week for the last 6 months. This has led to a reduction in hospital admissions, decreased pressure on the ambulance service, and a decrease in disruption to our service.”
Charles Cross, Director, Ashley Care
Most importantly, the outcomes for the individuals experiencing falls have greatly improved; Ashley Care is reducing the time they are spending on the floor, waiting for a response, and enabling them to stay in their own homes for care.
The fact that fallers do not have to wait for multiple hours on the floor, which could exacerbate any health challenges they may have, means they can get back to their life with minimal disruption.
“We have had overwhelmingly positive feedback from those we have lifted to say that they are so impressed that Ashley Care has allowed them to stay in their own home.”
“Our team are now able to deploy the HelpFall Assessment Tool as well as the Raizer Chair within 30 minutes of notification of a fall. This is a huge benefit to the operations of our service and the person-centred care that we aspire to deliver.”
Charles Cross, Director, Ashley Care
What’s next for Ashley Care?
Ashley Care is looking to expand its falls response service and become a trusted partner to both Mid and South Essex ICS and Southend City Council. They are looking to offer this service to other providers within Southend City Council and Essex County Council to increase the impact they can have on the local community.
Now that Ashley Care has successfully embedded innovation within its service, they are passionate to spread this best practice to other organisations, to enable them to upskill their teams to respond to falls and improve the outcomes of falls, both for their services and for their clients.
What should ICBs be doing as a result of the success of this project?
The evidence is overwhelming; the more that you empower organisations to respond to falls with the correct technology and processes, such as the HelpFall Assessment Tool and the Raizer Chair, the greater the reduction in system-wide pressures, and the greater the benefit financially, and operationally, and on care outcomes.
“ICBs should look at the data that we have collated over the last 6 months which evidences the impact that one provider can make. If they were to extrapolate this out to all community-based care services there would be a significant reduction in ambulance call-outs, hospital admissions and long lies.”
Charles Cross, Director, Ashley Care
Learnings & Conclusions
By successfully delivering falls response to individuals within Essex, Ashley Care are;
- 1. Improving outcomes for individuals that fall and enabling fallers to stay in their own homes
- 2. Reducing disruption from falls on their service, and on the local council and Integrated Care System
- 3. Reducing ambulance callouts to falls by 76%, taking the burden of minor and non-injury falls off emergency services
- 4. Improving ambulance response times to category 1 and 2 callouts
- 5. Increasing collaboration and engagement between providers and the Integrated Care System, increasing efficiency and reducing pressure on the system
Get in touch
Got a question or want to send us a message? Let’s talk.