Falls are a major cause of Emergency Hospital Admissions for Older People, and lead to many moving from home into residential care. The highest risk of falls is in people aged 65 and over.
Falls injuries can be particularly serious for older people, resulting in fractures and hospitalisation. Inpatient hospital admissions are a proportion of falls incidents, but more may present to Accident and Emergency and GPs, not all of which will lead to hospital admission. This indicator helps to measure falls prevention and joint working between the NHS, public health and social care.
Directly Age-Standardised Rates (DASR) are shown in the data (where numbers are sufficient) so that rates can be directly compared between areas. The DASR calculation applies Age-specific rates to a Standard European population to cancel out possible effects on crude rates due to different age structures among populations, thus enabling direct comparisons of rates.
This data uses primary diagnosis of injuries only. This may result in lower values in comparison to using all diagnoses.
Data source: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) indicator 2.24i (22401-C29). This data is updated annually.