Your comments: 17 January 2018

We are well aware of the huge cost to the NHS and of the advice given regarding falls prevention. However, it seems this is mostly aimed towards the frail elderly, even though fit and active older people are still falling in alarming numbers. So what are we missing? 

 

Using information gathered at a recent Retirement Association event and elsewhere, we ask the CSP to target fit and active people aged from 55 to 80 through education and raising falls awareness.

 

Members of the CSP Retirement Association recently met some third-year York St John University students to explore issues relating to falls. A number of fit and active retired delegates told stories about their last fall and why it happened. The best story came from a retired headmaster, aged 87. He gave way to a young mum with a pram in the town centre but fell on uneven ground as he stepped off the pavement. His courtesy, coupled with a moment’s reduced awareness, cost the NHS at least £1,000.

 

 

CSP assistant director Sara Hazzard responds:‘This fits well with our goals for 2018: campaigning around Older People’s Day, promoting public health more widely and planned activities on falls prevention.’ 

 

Good old days 

 

I write in response to the ‘Keeping it in the family’ feature that appeared in the 3 January issue of Frontline .

 

I also worked in the 1970s and was privileged to have a fairly free rein on treatments. Good liaison with well-founded arguments allowed us this freedom. Support from our superintendent was paramount and results mattered. The rheumatologists were the only prescriptive doctors but, again, with good discussion and reasoned arguments they, too, allowed us to treat as we thought appropriate.

 

Perhaps we were lucky, but the Royal Free Hospital in north London had a very forward-looking physiotherapy department and was well respected.