Managing risk positively for person centred outcomes

This toolkit provides guidance and resources for care home managers, commissioners, healthcare professionals and stakeholders to understand, prevent and manage falls effectively.

The ‘Action Falls Train the Trainer’ online course is aimed towards health and social care professionals who wish to train, mentor and enable care home staff in implementing the Action Falls programme. The course will take approximately 5 weeks based on 1 hour per week of study, and involves both self-directed learning and scheduled webinars featuring subject matter experts (dates TBC). 

In April 2024, the three organisations published Decaffeination and Falls Prevention, a report outlining a first-of-its-kind care home trial that resulted in a 35% reduction in resident falls relating to toileting. This website page hosts all of Care England’s information and resources relating to the decaffeination project.

What resources are included on this page?

• Improving health outcomes for care home residents: Decaffeination and falls prevention (research report)
• Switching to decaf: A how-to guide for care providers
• Switching to decaf: Resource pack
• Falls Prevention and Decaffeination Webinar (18th April 2023)

 This qualification aims to raise awareness about the impact and consequences of a fall, the risks and hazards that could result in a fall and how to prevent or reduce the risk of a fall.

This podcast episode is a recording of a panel that was held at The Residential & Homecare Show in 2023. Hear from a range of speakers from the industry for multiple perspectives on falls prevention in health and social care.

In the episode:

• Key statistics on falls in care homes
• The role of technology and data in falls-prediction and prevention
• Implementing regular falls reviews to identify patterns across a service
• The importance of good nutrition and hydration in falls prevention
• How good care planning and positive risk enablement can ensure we are working in a person-centred way and assessing everyone’s risk on an individual level.

This course is aimed at anyone who wishes to learn about falls, and the methods that can be implemented to prevent falls and fractures for older people, specifically for those working within a care home, or home care environment such as community nurses.

Although these resources come from the Care Inspectorate, Scotland’s national regulator for care services, much of the falls prevention information can be applied to care services across the UK.

What resources are available?

• Managing Falls and Fractures in Care Homes for Older People – good practice resource (revised edition)
• Falls management checklist
• Resident environment and orientation tool (adapted from tool developed by NHS Lanarkshire)
• Generic falls environmental risk assessment
• Bedrail risk assessment
• Seating matters leaflet
• And more…

This in-person course is for care workers in care homes and those who support people in their own homes. By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Recognise the impact of falls and fractures on older people
• Describe the factors that affect falls risk
• Identify falls risks within the home or care home environment
• Discuss and implement strategies for preventing falls.

This online course is for staff working with people who are at risk of falls and is delivered via a recorded presentation and workbook. By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Explain the physical and psychological consequences that may result from a person experiencing a fall
• Identify risk factors which can contribute to falls
• State what to look for when risk assessing in relation to falls
• Describe the preventative measures and actions to take when risk factors have been identified.

Falls are a major cause of injury in care settings, especially among older adults. By taking a proactive approach to falls prevention, we can significantly reduce the risk of unnecessary pain, distress, and loss of independence, ultimately improving health outcomes and quality of life. In this newsletter, we share practical strategies for falls prevention, spotlight innovative research, and provide valuable resources to help you create a safer care environment.

These free short eLearning modules are aimed at people working with older adults, with a view to raising awareness about falls and fractures, what the risk factors are, and how to take action to prevent them.

This is a recording of a webinar that took place on 13th March 2024 and included information on:

• Frailty and falls risks
• Risk factors in the resident’s environment 
• Visual impairments
• The importance of good footwear and foot health
• The impact of medications

This 30-minute online learning module is for care support staff working across a range of settings promoting good practice in preventing falls in the people that they support. It forms part of the knowledge-based Fundamental Core Care Skills series and will enable you to provide care with dignity and respect.

These resources complement HCPA’s StopFalls service, which aims to reduce falls across Hertfordshire. The website shares best practices for fall prevention, offering tools and assessments relevant to health and social care professionals across the UK.

Hear from Health and Safety Consultant Neil Hughes-Hutchings on the concept of positive risk taking and developing risk assessment approaches that balance personalised care and dignity with safety in care settings.

Protecting people from harm should be a priority for adult social care services. Practical and proactive approaches can help services quickly assess risks and regularly review and adjust them.

In this free online training course you will learn about the risk factors and causes of falls, as well as how to prevent falls and how to manage them when they happen.

React To Falls has been produced to promote best practice in managing falls for care home residents. It has been developed using research evidence, clinical experience and the experience of care home staff and is appropriate to all staff working in care homes supporting older people.

What resources are available?

• Reducing the Risk of Falls: A resource for care home staff and other healthcare provider
• Training films and other accompanying resources
• React to Falls app (developed by experts at the University of Nottingham)

This Risk Assessment training course is designed to help businesses comply with the Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999 by explaining how to complete a suitable and sufficient workplace risk assessment. Risk assessments are a legal requirement for all types of workplaces.

The course helps you to understand each of the key steps of a risk assessment, including how to identify risks, manage hazards and determine the likelihood of harm, so that you are confident in carrying out a risk assessment in your own premises.

Promoting wellbeing with the goal of achieving the best outcomes for the service user sometimes involves risk. Positive risk taking involves taking carefully considered risks that create positive outcomes for the service user, such as improved wellbeing and promotion of independence and dignity.

Please note if you are a provider registered with CQC, and with premises located in England, CQC is the relevant regulatory body for patient safety matters

People who work in health and social care constitute a large and diverse workforce looking after a predominantly vulnerable population. Employees have the right to work in a healthy and safe workplace, and the people using services are entitled to care and support that is safe and takes their needs, freedom and dignity into account.

Managing these different needs can sometimes present unique and complex situations which can, if not effectively managed, result in serious harm to employees, people using care services and others. The typical hazards include:

In this Slips Trips and Falls Prevention course, we will explore who is at risk from falls including us at work, and how to assess these risks. We will give tips on how to prevent falls both in the workplace and when supporting people. We will look at ways to support people, and at how to help someone when they have fallen.

This booklet may be useful for starting conversations about falls risks with those you care for. It provides practical tips for falls prevention.

a webinar recording with Dysphagia Training Clinical Lead, Janne Schack, who discussed how swallowing can go wrong and what you can do to support someone with swallowing difficulties.