Responding to the University of Bristol and North Bristol NHS Trust's newly published research into the potential ‘weekend effect’ on hospital admissions for older people sustaining broken hips, Mr Rob Wakeman, RCP’s National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) clinical lead said:
We welcome the work of the University of Bristol and North Bristol NHS Trust using national clinical audit data to explore the treatment and outcomes of patients with hip fracture.
While the weekend effect debate continues, it is important that robust, academic analysis of clinical data remains at the centre of understanding patterns of variation in the quality of care. National audits such as the NHFD provide high-quality data, which is collected by clinical teams in order to drive improvements in quality.
The NHFD has been instrumental in reporting on outcomes of older patients undergoing hip fracture for 10 years and now has more than half a million patient records, providing a wealth of robust information that underpins many recent improvements in medical care.
Thanks to clinicians capturing comprehensive patient data, we now have a very clear idea of what hospital medical and surgical teams need to do to maximise the recovery and rehabilitation of older hip fracture patients. What we are less clear about is what happens to patients after they have been discharged from an acute hospital and we would encourage colleagues across acute and community care to collaborate to ensure that safe and effective continuity of care occurs throughout every patient’s recovery.
National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD)
The National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) is a clinically led, web-based quality improvement initiative commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and managed by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The NHFD was founded by the British Orthopaedic Association and the British Geriatrics Society between 2004 and 2007. In 2013 the NHFD moved to be managed as part of the Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP) within RCP London.
All 177 eligible hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are now regularly submitting data to the NHFD, the largest hip fracture database in the world.
Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP)
The national Hip Fracture Database is part of the RCP's Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP), a national clinical audit designed to audit the care that patients with fragility fractures and inpatient falls receive in hospital and to facilitate quality improvement initiatives.