OPALS to FAS and Beyond
by Donna Little
Poster Download
Background
What is important to note is that our Trust has a long history of believing that a different approach is required for individuals living with frailty.
Method
The Improved Better Care Fund provided the resource to develop a comprehensive service that is now established as the Four Pillars Frailty Work Programme; a programme that looks at the individual living with frailty. The programme basically encompasses an education, an outreach, a Frailty Unit and an in reach function.
Results
We only started formally in October 2018 but have already seen more than 550 additional patients compared with the same period last year. Our length of stay on the Frailty Assessment Unit (based on AMU) is consistently below 24 hours, with our lowest LOS being 17.6 hours for April 2019.
We seek to discharge as many individuals as possible (for the last five months we have discharged between 40% and 54% of all our patients) within 24hours. Furthermore when our patients do become admitted to the main hospital their LOS is on average up to two days shorter than those of the same type that were not part of the service.
Next Steps
Going forward we will expand the service and look to see how we can work closer with our GCS colleagues in IAT as part of a 9 month pilot.