Practices of falls risk assessment and prevention in acute hospital settings: a realist investigation.

Background: Falls are the most common safety incident reported by acute hospitals. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence recommends multifactorial falls risk assessment and tailored interventions, but implementation is variable. Aim: To determine how and in what contexts multifactorial falls risk assessment and tailored interventions are used in acute National Health Service hospitals in England. Design: Realist review and multisite case study. (1) Systematic searches to identify stakeholders' theories, tested using empirical data from primary studies. Review of falls prevention policies of acute Trusts. (2) Theory testing and refinement through observation, staff interviews (n = 50), patient and carer interviews (n = 31) and record review (n = 60). Setting: Three Trusts, one orthopaedic and one older person ward in each. Results: Seventy-eight studies were used for theory construction and 50 for theory testing. Four theories were explored. (1) Leadership: wards had falls link practitioners but authority to allocate resources for falls prevention resided with senior nurses. (2) Shared responsibility: a key falls prevention strategy was patient supervision. This fell to nursing staff, constraining the extent to which responsibility for falls prevention could be shared. (3) Facilitation: assessments were consistently documented but workload pressures could reduce this to a tick-box exercise. Assessment items varied. While individual patient risk factors were identified, patients were categorised as high or low risk to determine who should receive supervision. (4) Patient participation: nursing staff lacked time to explain to patients their falls risks or how to prevent themselves from falling, although other staff could do so. Sensitive communication could prevent patients taking actions that increase their risk of falling. Limitations: Within the realist review, we completed synthesis for only two theories. We could not access patient records before observations, preventing assessment of whether care plans were enacted. Conclusions: (1) Leadership: There should be a clear distinction between senior nurses' roles and falls link practitioners in relation to falls prevention; (2) shared responsibility: Trusts should consider how processes and systems, including the electronic health record, can be revised to better support a multidisciplinary approach, and alternatives to patient supervision should be considered; (3) facilitation: Trusts should consider how to reduce documentation burden and avoid tick-box responses, and ensure items included in the falls risk assessment tools align with guidance. Falls risk assessment tools and falls care plans should be presented as tools to support practice, rather than something to be audited; (4) patient participation: Trusts should consider how they can ensure patients receive individualised information about risks and preventing falls and provide staff with guidance on brief but sensitive ways to talk with patients to reduce the likelihood of actions that increase their risk of falling. Future work: (1) Development and evaluation of interventions to support multidisciplinary teams to undertake, and involve patients in, multifactorial falls risk assessment and selection and delivery of tailored interventions; (2) mixed method and economic evaluations of patient supervision; (3) evaluation of engagement support workers, volunteers and/or carers to support falls prevention. Research should include those with cognitive impairment and patients who do not speak English. Study registration: This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42020184458. Funding: This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme (NIHR award ref: NIHR129488) and is published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 12, No. 5. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Many accidental falls by older people in hospitals could be avoided. There are guidelines to prevent falls, but some hospitals are better at following them than others. This study aimed to find out why. First, we looked at research and hospitals' falls policies for ideas about what stops falls. With advice from service users, we tested these ideas in four hospitals in England, watching how falls were prevented on wards for older people and people who need bone care, and talking to 50 staff, 28 patients and 3 carers. We found the following: Falls leadership: wards had staff called falls link practitioners who supported falls prevention, but senior nurses, not link practitioners, made the most important decisions. Sharing responsibility: patients with falls risks were monitored to try to stop falls. Because only nursing teams were always present to monitor patients, they had most responsibility for preventing falls. This limited sharing responsibility with other staff. Computer tools: nurses used computers to record prevention work, but high workloads could make this a 'tick-box' exercise. Computer tools reminded them to do this, although tools varied. Patients had individual falls plans, but they were also ranked more generally as high or low risk of falling, with 'high-risk' patients being monitored. Patient involvement: nursing staff did not have time to explain to patients how to prevent falls, but other staff could have such conversations. Many patients had problems like dementia and found it difficult to follow safety advice, although some could take steps to keep safe, with sensitive staff support. We need to involve patients, carers and different staff in falls prevention. Hospitals could develop computer systems to support this, think how to involve more ward staff, and provide guidance on helpful ways to talk with patients about falls.