Responding to A&E attendance figures published today, Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age, the older people’s charity, said:
"Record numbers of older people are attending A&E and, as our population ages, that number will continue to rise unless we take action. Falls are the single largest cause of emergency admissions for older people and there can be no logic in paying the health and financial cost of a hip fracture, each one of which costs the NHS more than £14,000, when a simple grab rail costs less than £30.
“Yet our health and social care systems are often too uncoordinated to provide effective home and community care to help prevent falls in the first place. This failure to integrate services is one of the reasons we are calling for an independent commission to review the future of health and social care."