Fall Prevention Awareness

Fall prevention awareness training delivered at your workplace or live online. Half a day. The practical, evidence-based knowledge your team needs to understand why falls happen, manage risk before an incident occurs, and respond correctly when someone falls.

Course Overview

Falls aren’t random events. They’re the predictable outcome of unmanaged risk, and in health and social care settings, that risk is present every day: in the environment, in the individual’s changing condition, in the medication they take, and in the habits of the staff supporting them.

One of the most consistent and dangerous responses to a fall is also one of the most understandable: a care worker sees someone on the floor and immediately tries to lift them. It’s instinctive. It feels like help. But lifting a person who has fallen without first assessing for injury, without appropriate equipment, and without following a safe system is one of the leading causes of secondary harm following a fall. It can turn a manageable incident into a serious one. And it’s entirely preventable with the right training.

This course also addresses the patterns that lead to repeated falls. A risk assessment was completed at the point of admission and never reviewed. A care plan that doesn’t reflect what happened the last time the individual fell. Environmental hazards that have become so familiar nobody notices them any more. These aren’t failures of intention. They’re failures of the system, and they’re what this course is designed to interrupt. The course reflects NICE guideline NG249 (Falls: assessment and prevention in older people and in people 50 and over at higher risk, 2025), which updates and replaces the previous NICE falls guidelines, alongside NICE Quality Standard QS86, and the expectations of the CQC under Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment and Regulation 17: Good Governance.

Course Details

  • Duration: Half day (3 hours)
  • Delivery: Face-to-face in-house or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Certificate: CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Fall Prevention Awareness
  • Awarding organisations: CPD-Accredited
  • Validity: No formal expiry. Refresher is recommended every 1 to 2 years, or sooner following a significant fall incident, changes to an individual’s condition, or identification of practice gaps through supervision or audit.
  • Group size: Maximum 15 learners per trainer

Who This Course Is For

This course is right for any care staff whose role involves supporting individuals at risk of falls.

  • Care assistants and support workers in care homes, supported living, and domiciliary care
  • Senior carers and team leaders
  • Residential and nursing home staff
  • Domiciliary care workers, including those supporting individuals alone in their own homes
  • Nurses and healthcare assistants
  • Registered managers and supervisors responsible for falls risk assessments and care planning
  • Personal Assistants supporting individuals through Personal Health Budgets, Continuing Healthcare, or Direct Payment arrangements

No prior knowledge is needed. For teams also needing practical skills in moving and repositioning people from the floor, our Moving and Positioning (People) course covers that ground and works well alongside this one. Not sure which combination is right for your team? Get in touch, and we’ll help you work it out before you commit.

Why This Training Matters

Falls are the leading cause of injury-related hospital admissions among older adults in England. NICE guideline NG249, published in 2025, sets the current evidence-based standard for falls assessment and prevention, and its message is clear: falls in older people are not inevitable. They are the result of identifiable, assessable, and manageable risk factors. The role of care staff in identifying those risk factors, acting on them, and updating care plans when circumstances change is one of the most direct contributions to preventing serious harm.

For an older adult, a fall is rarely just a physical event. Hip fractures carry a significant mortality risk. Beyond fractures, falls cause loss of confidence, reduction in mobility, increased dependence, and psychological harm that can outlast the physical injury by months or years. An individual who falls and is not properly supported through the aftermath may become so fearful of falling again that they restrict their own movement, reducing the activity that would help them stay stronger and more independent.

Under CQC Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment, providers must ensure care is delivered in a way that protects individuals from avoidable harm. Falls that result from unassessed risk, from care plans that have not been updated, or from staff who do not know what to do when someone falls are, in most cases, avoidable. CQC inspectors look at falls data, post-fall review processes, risk assessment quality, and whether staff can describe what they would do if someone fell in their care.

What the Day Covers

All content reflects NICE guideline NG249 (Falls: assessment and prevention in older people and in people 50 and over at higher risk, 2025) and current NHS England and HSE guidance throughout. Topics covered include:

  • The scale and impact of falls: why falls prevention is a clinical and regulatory priority
  • Why falls happen: intrinsic risk factors (condition, medication, cognition, vision) and extrinsic risk factors (environment, equipment, footwear)
  • High-risk groups: recognising individuals whose circumstances significantly increase their falls risk
  • Environmental risk awareness: identifying hazards that familiarity has made invisible
  • Falls risk assessment: what it must include, how to use it in a way that reflects the individual, and how it connects to care planning
  • The correct response when a person falls: what to do, what not to do, and why attempting to lift without assessment and equipment is unsafe
  • Post-fall care: immediate support, monitoring, and maintaining dignity and confidence
  • Updating care plans after a fall: why a fall is clinical information and when a review is required
  • Recording and reporting: what information is clinically relevant and why documentation quality matters
  • Learning from incidents: how post-fall review reduces the likelihood of recurrence
  • Promoting safe independence: balancing falls risk with the individual’s right to move freely

Every course is also built to include your internal falls policy, incident reporting system, and care plan documentation as standard.

How the Course Is Delivered

This course is available face-to-face at your workplace or chosen venue, or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Both formats are fully interactive. Online delivery is a live session with the same scenarios, discussion, and trainer engagement as the room-based version, not a pre-recorded module.

Groups are capped at 15 to ensure every learner gets sufficient time for discussion and reflection. Every session is built around your setting, the specific risk factors most prevalent in your service, your internal falls policy and incident reporting system, and your care plan documentation. We can also adapt for domiciliary care contexts, including lone working, home environment assessment, and escalation without immediate senior support. If your service has had a significant falls incident or received CQC feedback related to falls management, we can discuss how to build that context into the session during the enquiry process.

Delivery includes:

  • Real-life scenarios drawn from care settings, including the immediate response to a fall and the post-incident review process
  • Environmental risk-spotting exercises that challenge learners to see hazards that familiarity has made invisible
  • Discussion of falls risk assessment quality and what makes a care plan effective rather than formulaic
  • Reflective discussion on the habits and assumptions that allow risk to go unmanaged

Certification and Validity

On completion, learners receive a CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Fall Prevention Awareness.

A refresher is recommended every 1 to 2 years, or sooner following a significant falls incident, a change in the condition or care needs of an individual being supported, or where supervision, audit, or CQC feedback identifies gaps in falls prevention practice. Many organisations align falls prevention refreshers with their health and safety and risk assessment training cycles.

Our Moving and Positioning (People) training pairs naturally with this course for teams wanting practical repositioning skills alongside the awareness foundation.

Why Organisations Book With Prima Cura

Most training providers arrive with a course. We arrive with yours.

Before the day, we gather information about your workplace: your incident reporting forms, your internal procedures, and the specific hazards your team actually faces. On the day, your trainer works that into every scenario, every discussion, every practical exercise. If your staff work in a care home, they’re not practising on hypothetical office workers. If your team are lone workers, that context shapes how the session runs.

It means the training lands. Not because it was well-delivered in a generic sense, but because it was relevant to the people in the room and the situations they’ll actually encounter.

A few other things that matter to the organisations that book with us:

  • 98.9% learner satisfaction across all Prima Cura courses
  • All trainers hold Enhanced DBS certificates and maintain ongoing CPD
  • We advise honestly on the qualification level at the enquiry stage. If a different course is a better fit for your workforce, we’ll say so before you book, not after

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Where We Deliver

We deliver in-house training at your workplace or chosen venue across Manchester, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West. We also deliver nationally across England, including North England, South England, London, and Surrey.

All sessions are led by experienced Prima Cura Training instructors. Groups are capped at 15 per trainer to protect the quality of hands-on learning.

Our associate network means we can deliver across England. You can meet the team on our Associates page.

FAQs

What should a care worker do immediately when someone falls?

Do not attempt to lift the person from the floor. This is one of the most important things this course addresses. The correct immediate response is to stay with the individual, keep them calm, assess for injury, call for appropriate assistance, and ensure they are kept warm and comfortable while help arrives. Attempting to lift without assessment, without appropriate equipment, and without a trained second person risks further injury to both the individual and the care worker. This course covers the correct post-fall response clearly and in practical detail. If there are signs of serious injury, call 999 without delay.

Why must a care plan be updated after a fall?

A fall is clinical information. It tells you something about the individual’s current risk profile that was not sufficiently captured by the existing assessment. A care plan that is not updated following a fall does not reflect the individual’s actual circumstances, which means staff continue working with an inaccurate risk picture. This is one of the most common patterns in repeated falls: the first fall was not treated as a trigger for review, so the risk factors that caused it remained unaddressed. This course covers when and why care plans must be updated following a fall, and what that update must address.

Is fall prevention training a legal requirement for care providers?

Falls prevention is not a standalone legal requirement by name, but it is directly embedded in employer duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and CQC Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment, which requires providers to ensure care is delivered in a way that protects individuals from avoidable harm. Falls that result from unassessed or unmanaged risk are, in most cases, avoidable. CQC inspectors treat falls prevention as a core element of safe care delivery and look specifically at whether staff are trained, whether risk assessments are current, and whether post-fall reviews are completed. We deliver this training across Greater Manchester, the wider North West, and nationally.

Is this course suitable for domiciliary care staff supporting individuals at home?

Yes. Falls in a person’s own home carry specific challenges: environmental factors the care worker cannot control, lone working, limited immediate support, and escalation without a senior colleague immediately available. This course covers domiciliary care contexts specifically, including home environment risk awareness and what to do when a person falls during a solo visit. Content is adapted to reflect the particular risks your domiciliary staff face.

Related Courses

Book or Enquire

Book your training or request a quote

Tell us your team size and your sector. We’ll come back with a quote, the right advice on qualification level, and a straight answer on whether this is the best course for your team.

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Our Commitment to Quality and Compliance

At Prima Cura Training, all courses reflect current UK guidance and best practice. All trainers are experienced professionals with relevant qualifications and ongoing CPD. Because many of the organisations we support work with vulnerable individuals, all trainers hold Enhanced DBS checks.

This course is reviewed against updates from NICE, NHS England, the Care Quality Commission, the Health and Safety Executive, and current UK legislation, including the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Course content aligns with NICE guideline NG249 (Falls: assessment and prevention in older people and in people 50 and over at higher risk, 2025) and NICE Quality Standard QS86.

You can read more on our Quality Assurance and Compliance page.

Reviewed by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | 25+ years in health and social care | 15+ years as a trainer | Last reviewed: June 2026 | Next review: June 2027

This page is for general guidance only and reflects current UK legislation, NICE guidance, and sector best practice at the date of review. It does not constitute clinical, legal, or medical advice. Fall Prevention Awareness Training is an awareness-level course and does not replace clinical falls assessment, specialist physiotherapy or occupational therapy input, or the advice of appropriately qualified healthcare professionals. Care workers must always act within their role and in accordance with their organisation’s falls policy and procedures. Where a person falls and there are signs of serious injury, staff must call 999 immediately and follow their organisation’s emergency escalation procedures. Providers remain responsible for ensuring their falls prevention arrangements comply with CQC Regulation 12, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and all applicable legislation.

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