The Nottingham orthogeriatric unit after 1000 admissions

Abstract

Four years experience in the use of a new orthogeriatric unit run jointly by the orthopaedic Trauma service and the Department of Health Care of the Elderly is presented. There were over 1000 admissions during this period. The Unit was opened in 1978 and was established to meet the increasing problems stemming from fractures of the proximal femur in elderly women. During the ten-year period from 1971 to 1981 the number of patients with fractures of the proximal femur admitted to the orthopaedic trauma unit in Nottingham has doubled--from 290 cases in 1971 to 612 cases in 1981. The effect of the orthogeriatric unit has been to reduce the average length of hospital stay for these patients from 66 days in 1977 before the unit opened, to 48 days in 1979 with a rate of discharge to home or to relatives of 69 per cent of patients: inpatient case fatality within the unit has been 5 per cent.