Managing Frailty and Delayed Transfers of Care in the Acute Setting: A call to get involved!

Debbie Hibbert  leads on the NHS Benchmarking Network’s community sector benchmarking projects, manages the Delayed Transfers of Care / Older People’s benchmarking projects, is the Project Manager for the National Audit of Intermediate Care (NAIC), and the National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL). She tweets @Debbie_NHSBN 

In this blog, the Managing Frailty and Delayed Transfers of Care in the Acute Setting project is described. Clinicians are encouraged to get involved with this project, the outputs of which include a bespoke report for participants and access to an online benchmarking toolkit. To receive your log in details or for further information, please contact josh.davies@nhs.net.

Driving quality improvements in the care of older people remains a key issue for the NHS as the population of the UK ages. The NHS Benchmarking Network is back with another project following on from previous work on the care of older people, and delayed transfers of care.  The new project continues the Network’s six-year partnership with the BGS and will help our members to gather much needed data to inform service change and future strategic decisions.

10 days in a hospital bed leads to 10 years’ worth of lost muscle mass in people over age 80

Dan Thomas is an ST6 working in Liverpool. He is the BGS Clinical Quality Group Trainee Rep and the Deputy Media Editor. He tweets @dan26wales

‘10 days in a hospital bed leads to 10 years’ worth of lost muscle mass in people over age 80’

I have lost count of the number of times I have quoted this fact, I use it when teaching on frailty, and I have used it when assessing people in the emergency department to explain the risks of hospital induced deconditioning. I regularly hear other Geriatricians use this fact. It is emblazoned across much of the #EndPJParalysis material, and is quoted (unreferenced) on the NHS improvement website.

The right intervention, at the right time, in the right place…

Stephanie Robinson is an occupational therapist at Harrogate hospital working as the  frailty team leader across the medical elderly wards and previously seconded into the Supported Discharge Service. She has had a key role in cross boundary working, outreaching from frail elderly inpatient based wards to the community.

The right intervention, at the right time, in the right place… How Harrogate District Foundation Trust therapists from the community and in-patient wards are tackling the national bed crisis: piloting a Supported Discharge Service.

The pressure is on in Harrogate – the population of over 60s is 26.5% compared to 22.4% nationally.  By 2030 the district’s over 65 population is predicted to increase by 15,000 people.  One of the Trust’s strategic aims for the next five years is to integrate acute, community and social care to allow patients to be treated closer to home, or at home and reduce reliance on acute beds.  It is understood that therapy assessments completed in a patient’s own home are a more accurate reflection of their capabilities than those completed in the hospital environment.  Based on the Discharge to Assess model, the concept that the hospital is often not the most appropriate place for patients of any age to remain is not a new one.

Identifying older patients with frailty from routinely collected hospital data

Dr Thomas Gilbert is a consultant geriatrician (Hospices Civils de Lyon, FRANCE), with interests in Health Services Research. He worked with Dr Jenny Neuburger and colleagues from the Nuffield Trust in London on the development of the Hospital Frailty Risk Score whilst he was a clinical research fellow under the mentorship of Prof. Simon Conroy in Leicester (Department of Health Sciences).  He will be speaking at the Urgent care for frail older people event on 25 May at Horizon in Leeds. 

Advances in health care have helped people in developed countries live longer than ever before. This is good news for all of us, but it also presents a challenge to our health systems and a need to rethink the way that we provide healthcare. Out of nearly 20 million people admitted to an NHS hospital in the UK in 2015, a quarter were aged 75 years or older, and this proportion is set to increase.

For some older people, hospitalisation is associated with increased harms over and above their presenting clinical condition. Recognising that age alone is insufficient to identify and respond to such vulnerability, the term ‘frailty’ is increasingly being employed to highlight patients exposed to an increased risk of poor outcomes and likely to require higher resource use.

Uncontroversial truths; Discussing urgent care for older people

Stuart Parker is Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Newcastle University and a consultant physician at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust where he is helping to develop an acute inpatient service for frail older people. Here he discusses the Urgent care for frail older people – Hospital Wide Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment Meeting on 25 May in Leeds.

Frailty is now widely recognised as a key component of declining health and function in old age.  Older people with urgent care needs are particularly likely to experience frailty.  New acute illness can trigger the onset of frailty in an older person who, in whom the limits of their functional capacity may be urgently revealed. Older people are increasingly the main users of urgent care services. Accordingly, urgent care services for older people need to be able to recognise, evaluate and manage frailty.

Creating a ‘Frail Friendly’ Acute Medical Unit… ‘not rocket science’

Teresa Dowsing trained as a physician associate at the University of Birmingham Medical School. She has worked in geriatric medicine for around 7 years and is the Frailty Lead for the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust. To read more about physician associates and the British Geriatrics Society click here.

Creating a ‘Frail Friendly’ Acute Medical Unit (AMU) at George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust ….or what some specialities in my Trust used to call ‘not rocket science’…

Thinking about the latter part of this title, most of us that try to ‘practice’ geriatrics understand that it does sometimes feel like some form of mysterious dark art. A pinch of medicine, followed by a smidgeon of rehabilitation, mixed together with a drop of social care, a big dollop of communication and a dash of common sense. Simple? Not always…..

Delirium awareness is not just for hashtags, it’s for life

Dr Shibley Rahman is an academic physician interested mainly in dementia and frailty. He tweets at @dr_shibley

My most recent experience of delirium was truly terrifying, to the point that, as a care partner of a close relative with dementia experiencing delirium, I felt I needed counselling about this admission to a London teaching hospital.

I have now witnessed delirium ‘around the clock’ for half a month so far.

Delirium research is not taken as seriously as it should be.

Where for example is the research which explains the neural substrates of hypoactive and hyperactive delirium? How long do ‘sleep episodes’ last for? Is it a good idea to wake someone up while he is sleeping? Are there are any neuroprotective agents which prevent long term deterioration after delirium? How much of the delirium will the person experiencing it actually remember?

Spring Speakers Series: Are rules of thumb the answer?

Nathan Davies is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London focusing on care for people with dementia towards the end of life and supporting family carers. In this post he talks about his upcoming talk at the BGS Spring Meeting in Nottingham on his work developing rules of thumb for providing care towards the end of life for someone with dementia.

Can rules of thumb help manage uncertainty and the challenges facing practitioners caring for someone with dementia at the end of life?

We know that caring for someone towards the end of life can be a rewarding and intimate experience with that individual and those close to them. However, unfortunately for practitioners it can also be emotionally tough and challenging. This is particularly the case when caring for someone with dementia towards the end of life.

Ward rounds – are they safe and effective for patients and doctors?

Dr Tarun Solanki is a Consultant Physician and Geriatrician at Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.

Geriatricians are, in many hospitals, now responsible for looking after more than 50% of medical in-patients and are frequently required to look after outliers on non-medical wards. A recent article in the BMJ suggests that doctors’ way of working would not be accepted by businesses making decisions with far less impact and suggests that the old concept of the ward round is broken and needs to change^[i].

Since we, as geriatricians are providing a substantial element of acute inpatient care, should we not be at the forefront of improving the ward round so that it is not only effective and safe for patients but also to ensure geriatricians do not suffer from undue work pressures and risk burn-out?

Blue Ribbon Patient: Do Not Transfer

Rick Strang RN is Emergency Care Improvement Lead at Isle of Wight NHS Trust in England. When not involved in all types of emergency care Rick is usually finding innovative ways to avoid household chores.

Most of us across acute care have been involved in late night bed pressures that call for that dreaded decision to need to move some patients around between wards. Typically we see the only beds available to be surgical ones whilst the demand is for acute medical beds. Moving acute medical patients directly to these outlying beds from the emergency department (ED) may present too much of a risk. Lower acuity patients from acute wards are therefore often sought out to be transferred into these surgical beds thus making way for the more acute ED demand. End of Life (EoL) patients seem particularly at risk of being moved, which can be very distressing for families, friends, the patient and the care teams.