'X-ray car' sent to check elderly after falls

A mobile X-ray unit will be on the road from 1 December to try and reduce winter pressures on hospitals

An "X-ray car" is being tested out by healthcare staff in a bid to prevent elderly eople going to hospital unnecessarily.

The vehicle, which will contain an X-ray machine and radiographer, will travel to Staffordshire patients who have suffered a fall.

Elderly people who fall were a challenge for the health service and a mobile X-ray unit was being trialled as it had already been successful for another health trust, a county council meeting heard.

It is part of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board's plans to address expected increases in demand over winter and the vehicle will be on the road from 1 December.

"Fallers are a real challenge for us as a system – if a patient falls and they're elderly and there's a query around whether there's a fracture, they will be conveyed to hospital," said Hayley Allison from the Integrated Care Board (ICB).

"It's not necessarily always the right thing for that patient. So we are going to be testing an X-ray machine in a car with a radiographer."

The equipment in the vehicle is being partially paid for through charitable funds from University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM).

Recent weeks had already been "incredibly pressured" for acute health services in the area, councillors heard, and the opening of additional capacity at Royal Stoke University Hospital and Stafford's County Hospital has been brought forward.

Pressure on urgent and emergency care had been driven by more people attending, the earlier arrival of respiratory viruses compared to previous years, and staffing challenges down to an increase in short-term sickness.

During October the system had seen the highest attendances reported across the UHNM footprint ever recorded, the meeting heard.

The X-ray car is one of the "mitigatory actions" being put in place to reduce pressures on health services during winter.

Other measures include increasing the number of beds available in unplanned care at Royal Stoke Hospital as well as extra "surge beds" at Stafford's County Hospital.

Ten more "discharge to assess" beds opened ahead of plan at Haywood Hospital in Burslem.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.