Firefighters secure £300k funding extension for falls response work

We are celebrating after the service has successfully secured more than £300,000 in additional funding for our partnership work assisting uninjured people who have fallen in their own homes.

Our falls response team was launched in December 2022, with the NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) and West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS), aimed at reducing demand on the ambulance service as well as local hospital admissions.

The initiative works by WMAS staff working with a care coordination centre to allocate fire service personnel to attend any so-call ‘green calls’; where uninjured people may need help getting back on their feet or to a chair. We also conduct a safe and well check as part of our visit.

This latest funding of £310,000, secured to run the scheme until the end of March 2024, means that we can continue to help people in the community and ensure non-injury fall calls are dealt with appropriately.

Ian Read, head of prevent, protect and partnerships at Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “I am really pleased we have confirmed this latest funding and are able to continue to deliver and develop the work of our falls response team.

“Feedback so far from those we have helped has been overwhelmingly positive, which shows the initiative is making a real difference to the community.

“The scheme also allows us to interact with some very vulnerable individuals in our community and use these opportunities to ensure that they are as safe as possible within their own homes.”

So far, the project has seen fire service personnel attend a total of 294 call outs across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones, chief medical officer at the ICB, said: “Falls are one of the leading causes of avoidable hospital admissions.

“Very often the damage is done by not being able to get back to your feet and lying on the ground for an extended time, not the initial fall.

“Fire and rescue officers already do a great deal to make sure people live in safe homes and this is a valuable extension of this work that is already reducing harm and helping with demand on NHS services.”

To find out more about how to keep safe in the home, visit: Safe and Well (staffordshirefire.gov.uk).

For more on the scheme, listen to Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent falls response service by NHS AGEM & MLCSU Communications and Media in NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB playlist online.