Preventing falls at care homes across the UK

Company: Barchester Healthcare

Achievement: Creating thousands of Fall Fighters

Background: Barchester Healthcare is a national care home provider supporting 12,000 residents across 260 homes spread across the country. It has 17,000 staff and an estimated 50,000 regular visitors.

Challenge: Winners of the Healthcare Sector Award at the 2022 RoSPA Health and Safety Awards, Barchester was also shortlisted for the prestigious Sir George Earle Trophy. It was at the 2022 Awards ceremony that the Barchester team first heard about RoSPA’s Falls Charitable Appeal and decided to get involved by publicising the Fall Fighters campaign to their staff, residents, visitors and the wider community.

Paul Mason, the company’s Director of Health and Safety, said: “Our motto at Barchester is Celebrating life, so the Fall Fighters campaign fits perfectly with us. Keeping older people active means they have a much better quality of life and that includes preventing falls.”

Results: Paul says that getting everyone at a senior level in the company on board was vital to the success of the campaign. Fall Fighters was discussed at Barchester’s Quality and Safety Board meeting in June 2022, which was attended by the Executive Board (including the CEO), the Non-Executive Board and lead directors, and was met with an enthusiastic response. It was then announced at the company’s four divisional Autumn Quality First Conferences, which are attended by all the care home general managers.

A corporate working party was formed, which meets every week, and the campaign went into full swing during November 2022, culminating in a special Fall Fighters Week where Fall Fighter drop-in awareness sessions were held in every care home.

These sessions were designed to engage as many visitors, relatives and community groups as possible to spread the Fall Fighter message. Barchester’s CEO recorded a speech, while posters and special bunting was put up and all attendees received special Fall Fighter badges, which Paul Mason hopes will help spread awareness to others. “We really want to engage with the community and show we care”, he said.

The Fall Fighter interactive session is now accessible via Barchester’s digital learning platform, which will enable the company to track the number of participants.

In 2023, Barchester again won the Healthcare Sector Award and were finalists for the Fall Prevention Trophy.

As of August 2023, 9,378 people, including 8,735 active employees at Barchester, had become Fall Fighters thanks to the company's initiative.

August 2023

“Our motto at Barchester is Celebrating life, so the Fall Fighters campaign fits perfectly with us. Keeping older people active means they have a much better quality of life and that includes preventing falls.” - Paul Mason, Barchester Healthcare