Evaluation of a Training Package for Clinical Frailty Scale Scoring in Urgent and Emergency Care.

Objective: The Welsh Acute Frailty Service guidelines require Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) completion within 60 minutes of arrival into urgent care outlining a clear need for staff to be confident using the CFS in these settings. This study evaluates use of a training package to educate healthcare staff on using the CFS in an acute setting.

Method: Patient interviews were recorded in the emergency and acute medical units from which videos were created to explain how each patient’s CFS had been calculated. Patient stories and photographs were also used in an educational poster to support the videos. Healthcare staff completed a questionnaire evaluating their understanding of the CFS, alongside some clinical vignettes, before and after exposure to the educational resources. 47 healthcare professionals (nursing and medical) answered the pre-training questionnaire. A focus group of 9 healthcare professionals was used to evaluate any improvement in knowledge following exposure to the training package.

Results: Prior to the training 40/47 (85.1%) healthcare professionals 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that they would like to learn more about the CFS. After the training package 9/9 (100%) 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that the video and poster improved their knowledge about the CFS, and 9/9 (100%) would use the CFS more after the education. The proportion of HCP who 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' that they felt confident using the CFS rose from 29/47 (61.7%) to 7/9 (77.8%). After the training package the proportion of people responding with 'I don't know' to a vignette fell from 8/47 (17.0%) to 0/9 (0.0%), whilst the proportion with a correct answer rose from 9/47 (19.1%) to 7/9 (77.8%).

Conclusions: Acute care staff expressed enthusiasm to learn more about the CFS. The video and poster-based training package improved knowledge and understanding of the CFS in an acute setting.