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Research letter
Can you assess the Clinical Frailty Scale in the HEMS setting? A Feasibility Study
  1. Sarah Morton1,2,
  2. Christopher Gough1,3
  1. 1 Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance, Lincoln, UK
  2. 2 Imperial College London, London, UK
  3. 3 Department of Research and Education in Emergency Medicine, Acute Medicine and Major Trauma, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sarah Morton, Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance, Lincoln LN4 2GW, UK; sarah.morton{at}doctors.org.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2022-212950

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    Patients living with frailty are at risk of worse outcomes.1 The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a tool that has been developed to assess a patient’s level of frailty.2 It is determined by a patient’s baseline health (status two weeks prior to hospital admission), with a score of 1 being very fit and 9 being terminally ill.2 Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, frailty screening was part of the National Health Service England commissioning tariff, although there is no current agreement on when this should be assessed in the patient’s journey, and this has ceased since the pandemic.3 Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) teams respond to critically unwell medical and trauma patients of all ages, making challenging decisions on scene. These decisions, which have long-term implications for the patients and their families, include whether or not to preform invasive procedures, such as prehospital anaesthesia, and triage destinations, including whether to transport patients to a specialist centre …

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Caroline Leech

    • Twitter @drsarahmorton

    • Contributors SM and CG were involved in the conception and design of the study, acquiring data and interpreting data, as well as drafting and revising the manuscript. Both authors approved the final version prior to submitting.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.