After A Fall: A Seven-Day Checklist For Families

The week after an older relative falls is unusually loaded. There are clinical decisions, practical decisions, and emotional ones, often happening at the same time. This checklist is a calm sequence to follow over seven days, written for families rather than clinicians. It assumes the fall has been triaged medically and the immediate emergency is over.

If the fall has just happened and you are still in A&E or on the phone to 111, stop reading and come back later. The first 24 hours are about clinical care, not planning.

Day 1: medical and immediate practical

If they are home from hospital, walk the route from the front door to the bedroom. Mark anything you would change if you were redesigning the house tonight. Loose rugs, low lighting, reachable handrails, the height of bed and toilet. Do not change anything yet, just observe and note.

Confirm what the GP or A&E discharge team said, in writing. Most discharges include a follow-up plan, a falls-prevention referral, and possibly an OT referral. Get the names and dates. If they were discharged without a referral and the fall was on the stairs, ring the GP and request one. The relative does not need to make this call themselves.

Cancel anything they were planning to do alone in the next seven days that involves stairs, driving, or heavy lifting.

Day 2: ground-floor first

Set up a working ground-floor room. The aim is to remove all stair use for the next several days while you assess. A sofa-bed, a borrowed single bed, or even a recliner is fine. Put the things they reach for daily within easy reach: phone, glasses, water, medication, remote controls, a torch.

If a downstairs WC is available, that solves the night-time stair question. If not, a commode rented from a chemist or pharmacy chain is a temporary answer for the next two weeks.

Tell their close circle what has happened. Two phone calls today, not a group message. Friends and neighbours notice that things are different and worry; a brief honest update is kinder than silence.

Day 3: bring the OT in

An occupational therapist will visit the home and assess what has changed. The referral can come through the GP, the discharge team, or social services. If you ring social services directly, ask for a Care Act assessment for the relative; an OT visit is part of that.

The visit itself is conversational and friendly, not clinical. The OT looks at: stairs, bathroom, kitchen, lighting, footwear, and the relative’s confidence. Their report is the document that funders, including grant assessors, take seriously. More on what to expect.

Day 4: review what already exists

Walk the staircase with the relative. Ask them, in their own words, what felt different about the day they fell. Was it the carpet? The light? The slipper? Tiredness? A medication change? Often the relative knows exactly what went wrong but has not been asked. Their answer should shape the rest of the week.

Check three small things on every staircase before doing anything bigger:

• Both handrails. Is there one on each side? Are they both screwed into the wall studs, not just plasterboard?
• Lighting. Is there a bright bulb at the top and bottom? Do both switches work?
• Footwear. What are they wearing on their feet on the stairs? If the answer is “loose slippers”, that is often half the problem.

These three are the highest-impact, lowest-cost changes available. Many falls do not happen again because of equipment, they do not happen again because of better lighting, a second handrail, and a different pair of slippers.

Day 5: plan the medical follow-up

Book the GP follow-up. Ask the GP to review the relative’s medication list. A surprising number of stair falls in older adults are linked to recently changed prescriptions, particularly blood-pressure medication, sleeping tablets, or anything that affects balance. The GP can review and adjust if appropriate.

If the relative has not had a hearing or eye check in the last 12 months, book those too. Sudden vision change is a common, under-recognised cause of stair falls.

Day 6: think about the medium term

You now know more than you did six days ago. With the OT report in hand, the GP medication review done, and the immediate environment improved, the next decision is whether to make permanent changes to the home or wait and see.

If the fall was a one-off and the relative is recovering well, the answer might be: keep the second handrail, keep the better lighting, change the slippers, no further action.

If the fall is the latest in a pattern, this is the week to start thinking seriously about a stairlift, downstairs living, or another structural change. Our “Is it time for a stairlift?” guide walks the decision framework.

Day 7: the conversation

Sit down together. Calmly. Without urgency. Ask: “How are you feeling about the stairs now?” Listen to the answer. Do not push toward a particular outcome. Most older adults who have just had a fall are more open this week than they will be next month, but they need to feel heard, not managed.

If they want to consider a stairlift, our prices guide and grant guide are at stairlift prices and stairlift grants. If they want to wait and see, that is also a reasonable answer; the changes you have already made will help.

One more practical: book a follow-up review for two weeks from now. Pick a date and write it on the calendar. Falls follow-ups are easy to drift past, and three months later families realise nothing else happened.