Warwickshire progress on hospitalisation of elderly after falls

Warwickshire residents are served by George Eliot Hospital, Nuneaton, as well as University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, and Warwick Hospital

A council said measures to prevent elderly populations being hospitalised after falls were working, despite admissions being worse than target.

A report to Warwickshire's Health and Wellbeing Board showed admissions between April and June were 17.5% higher than hoped, at 548 per 100,000.

However, Rachel Briden from the county council said the data was encouraging.

"There is a reduction of around 15% compared with this time last year," she told the board. 

The integrated partnership manager added the authority's fall prevention initiatives were "starting to come through".

The strategies, which include strength and balance exercise videos and urgent response for falls, had hoped to bring the hospital admission rate to within 466 per 100,000 population of over 65s for the quarter.

Other data showed a fall of 9% in avoidable admissions to hospitals serving Warwickshire residents compared to the same period last year.

There were 1,103 unplanned hospitalisations, within the target of no more than 1,213. 

However, the report noted a similar trend in 2022, when "performance was better than target in quarters one and two before increasing during the second half of the year".

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [e-mail]