Changing how we think about falls

Following Falls Prevention Awareness Week, RoSPA OSH & Falls Manager Jules Robinson reflects on why it’s important to think about the risk of falls the whole year round.

This year’s Fall Prevention Awareness Week demonstrated how far the UK has come in tackling deaths and severe injuries caused by falls. Most hearteningly, it showed that organisations and the wider public are beginning to change from the belief that falls are just an inevitable part of ageing, but rather a serious – and often deadly – health risk.

However, as the Falls Prevention Awareness Week theme ‘From Awareness To Action’ illustrates, it is practical evidence-based interventions that are most needed to tackle the rising crisis in deaths from falls, which have increased by 90 per cent over 10 years. Accidental falls also account for over 400,000 A&E admissions, putting immense pressure on the NHS and costing over £4 billion every year.

Practical evidence-based interventions are exactly what RoSPA provides through our Fall Fighter campaign and online Falls Prevention hub. Designed in collaboration with housing providers and healthcare experts, these free resources enable individuals at particular risk, and the professionals or family and friends who may be caring for them, to reduce the likelihood of a serious fall at home.

Crucially, while the resources contain plenty of advice on eliminating trip hazards in the home, Fall Fighter focuses on the person themselves, as opposed to just the environment around them. For example, physical deconditioning caused by a sedentary lifestyle – exacerbated by periods of inactivity as seen during the COVID lockdown – is a major risk factor for falls. The Falls Management Exercise (FaME) 24-week programme showed 20-30 per cent of older adult falls could be prevented by improving strength and balance, and our resources contain advice for simple exercises to improve strength and balance.

Workplace falls

However, while falls account for four out of five hospital admissions for people over 65, and over 50 per cent of falls happen at home, there are valuable lessons for other groups in other places too. Falls from height are the biggest single cause of deaths in the workplace, so the concept of putting people at the centre of falls prevention has particular importance for occupational safety and health (OSH) strategies, especially as an ageing workforce brings increased levels of risk. Nor are those risks just to do with physical strength or frailty – mental health issues caused by workplace stress or the side-effects of prescription medication can also make a severe fall more likely.

This means that preventing falls in the workplace must move beyond simply asking ‘What shoes are people wearing?’ to asking ‘What are all the different risks for each individual worker?’. This necessary holistic perspective on risk must come from good staff engagement to understand all the many issues – personal, social and clinical as well as environmental – at play. In other words, managing fall risks effectively in the workplace means listening to what staff say as well as what can be seen or what data shows. Just as no good safety manager would ignore the risk of falls posed by a cluttered floor, they cannot afford to ignore equally dangerous issues that cannot always be seen.

Hear Jules talk more about Fall Fighter on the Slip Safety & Risk Success podcast