Nuffield Council on Bioethics

This report sets out an ethical framework and recommendations for research and innovation related to ageing. 

NIHR Policy Research Unit Older People and Frailty

This briefing highlights the concerns of care recipients and the public. The aim is to identify, highlight and synthesise the issues that are important to older people living with multiple conditions and their carers 

Increasing numbers of people are at risk of developing frailty. People living with frailty are experiencing unwarranted variation in their care. This toolkit will provide you with expert practical advice and guidance on how to commission and provide the best system wide care for people living with frailty. 

‘Frailty’ is a term that’s used a lot, but is often misunderstood. When used properly, it refers to a person’s mental and physical resilience, or their ability to bounce back and recover from events like illness and injury. 

People with frailty are at risk of falls. They're also at risk of developing conditions such as anxiety and depression, and are more likely to have unplanned hospital admissions. Identifying people with frailty and improving their care and support are therefore priorities for the health and care system. NICE provides a range of resources relating to frailty

This guideline covers optimising care for adults with multimorbidity (multiple long-term conditions) by reducing treatment burden (polypharmacy and multiple appointments) and unplanned care. It aims to improve quality of life by promoting shared decisions based on what is important to each person in terms of treatments, health priorities, lifestyle and goals. The guideline sets out which people are most likely to benefit from an approach to care that takes account of multimorbidity, how they can be identified and what the care involves. 

BritainThinks on behalf of Age UK and the British Geriatrics Society

The clinical identification of frailty is increasingly thought to be important in countries with ageing populations. Understanding how older people labelled as frail make sense of this categorisation is therefore important. A number of recent studies have reported negative perceptions of the term among older people themselves. Building on this, we focus on how and why those assessed to be frail make sense of frailty as they do.

Don Redding Policy Director, National Voices
Tom Gentry Policy Advisor, Age UK
Jenny Shand Director Integrated Co-morbidities Programme, UCLPartners
Laura Stuart Frailty Programme Manager, UCLPartners. 

The set of narrative statements published in this document describes the way older people want high quality coordinated care to support them. This document is intended to be used as an extension to the Narrative for person centred coordinated care1 published by National Voices and Think Local Act Personal, in May 2013. Together they will help commissioners and providers to work together with older people, to design care and support that will be successful in achieving the outcomes that matter most to them.

This framework was commissioned by Health Education England and NHS England. This is a joint partnership publication by Skills for Health, NHS England and Health Education England. 

Health Education England and NHS England commissioned the development of this core capabilities framework to improve the effectiveness and capability of services for people living with frailty. 

Effectiveness Matters is a summary of reliable research evidence about the effects of important interventions for practitioners and decision makers in the NHS and public health. This issue updates a previous issue published in January 2015 and was produced by CRD in collaboration with the Yorkshire and Humber AHSN Improvement Academy and Connected Yorkshire, part of Connected Health Cities. 

The Centre for Ageing Better's online, interactive report captures a snapshot of how people in the UK are ageing today, while looking at past trends and our prospects if action isn't taken. 

The Centre for Ageing Better's online report gives an overview of the harm that ageism causes to both individuals and society.

Public Health England

"We want to enable people to take control of their current and future health, and to boost parents’ understanding of how active play and ‘physical literacy’ is essential for children. Being active at every age increases quality of life and everyone’s chances of remaining healthy and independent."

Midlothian Health and Social Care Partnership are forging a path to change frailty identification and management. The journey began by using existing Primary Care records to stratify the population in Midlothian using the eFrailty Index (eFI), and this has led to new insights concerning the scale of the challenge of supporting citizens identified as living with frailty (~12,000 citizens). Through innovative partnerships with the British Red Cross and VOCAL (Voices of Carers Across Lothian), new ways of supporting people living with frailty and carers have been developed, which support people to navigate the system and access support to live well. Alongside this, Midlothian have developed new ways for health, care and third sector professionals to collaborate and work in multidisciplinary ways to identify people at risk and prevent crisis. 

Ipsos MORI for Age UK

Older people living with frailty are disproportionately affected by public and private services that are not geared to their needs. They are often the faces behind the headlines on poor-quality care; on avoidable admissions to hospital; and on the shameful statistics on isolation and loneliness. This report sets out to explore the reality of living with frailty with the people experiencing it. 

Dawn Moody, Helen Lyndon and Dr Grant Stevens

The aim of this toolkit is to provide GPs, practice nurses and the wider primary care workforce with a suite of tools to support the case finding, assessment and case management of older people living with frailty.

NIHR Dissemination Centre

People are living longer and many are enjoying healthy lives. But it is also true that a significant percentage of older people are particularly vulnerable to relatively minor changes in their circumstances which can lead to a deterioration in their health and ability to live independently. A hospital stay itself can trigger a crisis. This review looks at the concept of ‘frailty’ in older people and what can be done to raise awareness amongst hospital staff, so that they identify and manage the needs of this group of people and avoid known potential problems. With the right support, patients can continue to live well at the end of their hospital stay. 

Public Health England, National Osteoporosis Society and NHS RightCare

RightCare Pathways provides a national case for change and a set of resources to support Local Health Economies to concentrate their improvement efforts where there is greatest opportunity to address variation and improve population health.

Care homes are a key part of health and social care provision within the UK, and research is needed to help develop solutions to challenges faced in practice. Care homes might want to get involved in research but might not know where to start, and likewise, researchers might not know how best to engage care homes in their work.

A team of academics with first-hand experience of conducting research and working with care homes have produced a tool, with public and patient input, to help care homes get more involved in research, and researchers wanting to involve care homes in research.

The tool is freely available and is a 2-sided infographic hand out which aims to help guide discussions about engaging in research from the perspectives of both the research community and the care homes.

Learn what regulations to follow and how to evaluate effectiveness, whether you're a 'developer' of AI and digital technology or an 'adopter' who will buy or use them in health and social care.

The Healthtech First 100 is a directory of pioneering UK companies ready to work with you. They are laid out by sub-sector - take a look at their areas of expertise and check out their website.