A new tool showing site-level, up-to-date emergency medical pathway data specific to older and frail patients has been added to the GIRFT suite of resources supporting urgent and emergency care (UEC).
SAMIT 75+ is a new tab within GIRFT’s existing Summary Acute Medicine Indicator Table (SAMIT) data tool, offering national comparative data for frailty at site level, all on one easy-to-understand page.
As with the SAMIT, only the most useful metrics have been selected for display to provide a deep understanding of a site’s frailty service covering demand, flow and outcome for both the admission and recovery phases of care.
Each site’s landing page also includes a GIRFT Elderly caRe Index (GERI) score, which ranks sites on their performance against three key patient experience metrics:
- Discharge of frail patients over 65s in less than three days;
- Frail bed days utilisation for patients over 65 who stay in hospital longer than 21 days; and
- Bed utilisation of frail patients over 65 with three or more admissions in a year.
The SAMIT 75+ data is current – only around six weeks old – and is refreshed monthly, making it the most up-to-date view of a service available.
GIRFT’s national report for geriatric medicine was published in 2021, based on deep dive visits to trust teams across England. It showed that (pre-Covid) up to 10% of people attending the ED and 30% of patients in acute medical units were older and living with frailty. There were more than 4,000 admissions daily of people with frailty – for reasons such as falls, minor infections and reactions to medications – and patients over-75s living with frailty occupied about 20% of all bed days across England.
“Frailty is a big issue for the NHS, one which affects services across the care pathway, from colleagues in the ED and hospital wards through to those working in care homes and the community. The SAMIT 75+ has been developed by clinicians for clinicians, helping to cut through the noise of other data tools and allow a ‘helicopter view’ of how a service is performing. We’d urge those working in UEC specialties to make regular use of both the SAMIT and SAMIT 75+ – alongside the metrics in the Model Health System – to gauge performance and highlight gaps which might be impacting on the delivery of a service.”
A GIRFT webinar is planned for 22nd October (12.30pm) 2024 to showcase the SAMIT 75+ tab and hear from teams who are making use of the data. Click to register.
