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.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) in England are being forced to restructure by NHS England (NHSE) as part of cost-cutting measures. NHSE is arguing that resources would be better spent in frontline care, and is therefore mandating that ICBs trim down on staff numbers and other organisational spending in order to achieve savings.
In this article we will explore the structure of an integrated care board, as well as the proposed restructuring from 2023 that is being followed through on in 2024/25. We will explore the running costs of ICBs, offering some comparison to past iterations of Care Commissioning Groups (CCGs), and conclude with the point of the restructuring – workload management – and whether this is actually improving matters or short-sighted; saving £1 now to spend £2 later.
Access had the pleasure of attending and exhibiting at NHS ConfedExpo 2024 in Manchester last week. The event, in partnership with NHS Confederation, attracted more than 5,400 delegates over the two days and hosted over 150 sessions discussing key matters impacting the health and social care industry.
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.
Homelessness prevention and tackling homelessness are key responsibilities for local authorities. Under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 councils are required to provide help to people facing homelessness and find ways to prevent it in the first place.
According to the UK.GOV's latest statistics, households in temporary accommodation by the end of December 2023 have increased by 12.1% in the last year and 3.4% since the last quarter, meaning a staggering 112,660 households are depending on temporary accommodation. It also recorded that a total of 145,800 children were living in temporary accommodation by the end of December 2023.
But why does the dependency on temporary housing keep rising? What is the government doing to help tackle homelessness? And how best can your local authority prevent homelessness in your community.
At Access Adam Housing, we know and understand the housing challenges local authorities are facing across the UK and why that’s causing the rise in homelessness. We make it our aim to not only help provide fully compliant temporary accommodation, but we also go one step further by supporting your homelessness prevention strategies to ensure individuals and families get back on their feet to make temporary housing more permanent.
By the end of this article, you will fully understand what the national definition of homelessness is, why tackling it is vital for your community, more about the pattern of homelessness rates in the UK, as well as the best ways to prevent homelessness across your community both now and in the future.
