Older, frail patients often lack access to basic care needs in emergency departments

There is a need for emergency departments to be more ‘frailty friendly’, according to new research published in the Emergency Medicine Journal. A small qualitative study has found that emergency departments across England are often not set up to meet the basic care needs of frail older patients. Patients did not always have access to the most basic care needs The findings are based on in-depth interviews with 24 older people (75+) living with frailty and 16 of their carers with current or recent experience of emergency care in three separate hospital emergency departments in England between January and June