The most common causes of falls in the elderly include poor eyesight and hearing, weak muscles, slow reflexes, low blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, arthritis, and depression. Furthermore, some medications may cause dizziness or confusion which increase an elderly person’s risk of falling.
More than one in four people aged 65 or older fall each year. In addition to the risk of injury, falls can cause an elder person to develop an ongoing fear of falling. This fear can cause them to avoid activity, making their muscles weak, thus further increasing their risk of falling.
Through understanding the causes of falls, social care providers can be better placed to conduct a fall risk assessment and implement appropriate fall prevention strategies.
While falls can affect people of all ages, they are a particular concern for the elderly. This article will focus on the causes of elderly falls and conclude with a look at how technology enabled care (TEC) can reduce the risk of falls.
Housing Events in 2024 offer a wide range of insights into how key stakeholders can better tackle housing challenges across the country, and Housing 2024 was no different.
With co-production being one of the key messages from Housing 2024, it is clear that improvements to housing problems will only improve when stakeholders in the housing sector communicate with each other and individuals to concentrate on what matters to them.
Whether it’s preventing homelessness, creating net zero homes, better managing ageing populations, making housing more accessible, or supporting independent living, providing support that the individual wants, needs, and requires is vital.
So what were the key takeaways from Housing 24 and what are the next steps to integrate housing, health, and social care?
This article will review some of the key insights and next steps in providing and creating virtual homes that cater to every individual need by continuously involving them in every housing decision being made.
Insight data is valuable across all industries. Turning data into insight and then into action enables industries to drive better outcomes and results, and actionable health and social care insights are no different.
Having actionable health and social care insights are vital to transforming care deliveries from reactive to proactive and preventative. Here better outcomes-focused care can be delivered concentrating on what matters to the individual.
But what are actionable insights? And how can care providers, turn data into actionable insights to deliver better-coordinated care?
At Access Technology Enabled Care we know that an estimated 2 million users have either a telecare or a technology enabled care device and that this number will continue to rise as more individuals live with more than one long-term condition.
We know and understand the increased pressure to reach the rising demand, so we want to make it easier to capture all data insights in one place to enable better data-driven decisions before something more critical takes place, to increase independence, provide reassurance, and most importantly improve quality of life.
By the end of this article, you will know and understand all there is to know about capturing, monitoring, and utilising actionable insights to improve care outcomes and how at Access Technology Enabled Care we put the individual at the heart of every decision to ensure a better quality of life.
Having a CQC visit checklist in place allows all services within the health and social care sector to be prepared when it comes to CQC inspections.
In health and social care, the scrutiny of regulatory bodies ensures that the quality and safety of care services do not fall below a certain threshold. In England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the regulatory body and it plays a crucial role in encouraging care services to improve while providing safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care.
CQC inspections are thorough assessments that are carried out to ensure care services are meeting the essential standards of quality and safety. To prepare for the inspections and to maintain or even improve standards, care services often carry out a mock CQC inspection. This is basically a rehearsal for the real thing and highlights areas that are doing well and areas that need to be improved before the real thing is carried out.
At The Access Group, we have over 30 years of experience working with care services across the UK and we know the importance of being prepared for regulatory body inspections. This article contains information on the importance of CQC mock inspections, what they are and how to carry them out correctly. With our help, we hope that you’ll feel confident and prepared with our CQC inspection checklist.
Safeguarding elderly with dementia is essential for protecting the health, well-being and human rights of individuals that use the care system. These are usually the most vulnerable so need protection more than ever. In the UK, safeguarding is a vital practice to ensure that everyone, particularly vulnerable adults, children and young people, live lives free from abuse, harm and neglect.
We at The Access Group pride ourselves on the security and safety that our software has to offer. We have been working with care services throughout the country for the past 30 years and aim to improve the lives of everyone who utilise our platforms. Over the years, our experience has allowed us to create content like this that can be used to aid and protect people working and living in care.
The article delves into the intricacies of safeguarding, with a particular focus on dementia safeguarding. We will explore how to protect those affected by this condition and the policies and procedures you can put in place to support them and their carers.
Adult social care budgets are crucial in helping local authorities plan, commission, and deliver the social care needs of their community. However, restrictions and limitations from the Department of Health and Social Care Budget, as you will probably be aware, cause multiple challenges for local authorities to both improve their future planning as well as reach the increasing and complex demands of the community.
So, what is the budget for social care? How can budgets differ? And what are the best ways adults' social care budgets can be spent?
At The Access Group, we are aware of the challenges across the health and social care sector. We want to make it easier for local authorities to manage the challenges of commissioning social care, so budgets and resources can be spread further to prevent individuals going without the support they need.
Understanding budgets in health and social care isn’t always easy, especially as both autumn and spring budgets lead to changes in values, legislation, and responsibilities. Local authorities must be flexible in the services they deliver to ensure their responsibilities of the Care Act are consistently delivered to improve outcomes.
By the end of this article, you will know all the latest breakdown of adult social care budgets, including the targets and areas of improvement the government and the Department of Health and Social Care want your local authority to follow to achieve local, regional, and national targets.
This article will also break down some of the best ways to optimise the funding so no individual goes without the support they require and deserve by digitally transforming your processes and workflows for the best outcomes.
Local health and social care services are vital in ensuring individuals’ physical and mental wellbeing. Local authorities play a pivotal role in shaping health and social care services across the community.
As you are probably aware it is the role and responsibility of your local authority to ensure you’re your local population receives high-quality, efficient, and responsive care when they need it.
But how best can your local authority commission health and social care services? What are the challenges that need to be addressed? And how best can these challenges be avoided?
At The Access Group, we are aware of the challenges facing the health and social care market as well as the impacts limiting budgets and rising demands have on local authorities when ensuring the accessibility of health and social care services across the community.
We know that local authorities are aware that investing in digital solutions and local government software is a good step forward to commissioning and delivering better health and social care services in line with their responsibilities in the Care Act. But we also know from our recent Social Care Commissioning Report, that one of the biggest concerns when commissioning health and social care services is investing in technology that doesn’t work, in fact, nearly a fifth of respondents voted that as their biggest concern.
By the end of this article, you will know and understand the best ways your local authority can commission your health and social care services by overcoming the challenges faced by the market, as well as the importance of digitally transforming your services correctly to get the best return on investment.
A successful work-life balance is so important in whatever role you are in, being a care worker is known for being very rewarding, but also emotionally and physically demanding.
Many carers go ‘above and beyond’ what might be expected of them. While this is admirable it is important to maintain a balance. Not having that respite could result in social care losing some of its best people.
Staff retention in social care is extremely important when it comes to ensuring consistent high-quality care and maintaining the well-being of both caregivers and service users. Caring for vulnerable people is an enormously demanding job that can lead to staff burnout and high turnover rates if care staff aren’t receiving a sufficient amount of support in their role. Losing members of the team can have a detrimental effect on the overall performance of a care service and the comfort of their service users.
By investing in the wellbeing of your workforce, your care service will be best placed to deliver continuous exceptional care which will boost the overall success and rating of the business. We at The Access Group have been working with care services for over 30 years, helping them adapt to a digital way of life, and have seen how different care services are able to better retain staff than others. This article explores the effective strategies to retain care staff, why it’s important to do so and how digitisation can help.
ICB and PCN funding opportunities present significant chances to develop and digitally transform primary care networks and services. When leveraged correctly, these new funding opportunities can bring about widespread benefits. These funding streams facilitate necessary changes to transform care and support services across primary care settings, enabling a better response to the challenges across the health and social care market and your local community.
One of the most exciting aspects of new primary care funding opportunities is the encouragement of greater collaboration and co-production between ICBs and PCNs. This collaborative approach helps to better address community needs whilst achieving regional, national, and long-term goals to recover access to primary care.
Despite the cancellation of the £300 million digital pathways framework due to delays from legal challenges, NHS England has enhanced its national support offer. This includes a £48 million reimbursement fund derived from the Primary Care Access Recovery Plan (PCARP) with the aims of supporting Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to improve patient access, streamline care navigation, and enhance overall healthcare delivery through advanced digital solutions.
But what exactly is this fund? How does the new funding work? And most importantly, how can it be used, and how long will it last?
At Access Elemental Social Prescribing, we understand the importance of securing multiple-funding stream sources to ensure the sustainability of support services. We know that maximising the benefits of the funding received is equally crucial to achieving the best outcomes for patients, communities, and the workforce.
In this article you will learn all about the new PCN and ICB fund that is available and the best ways to use it to improve patient outcomes by managing demand and capacity more effectively.
