Guest host(s): Patient Safety Team @NHSIQ

Firemen and women currently carry out 670,000 home and safety checks a year. Over the last ten years Manchester Fire and Rescue Services have changed their approach from the essential fire alarm testing to a more holistic preventative approach around being safe and well at home. They have worked hard to better understand the determinants of vulnerability to fire in the home which has resulted in a 50% reduction in call outs, with death and injury from fire currently being at an all time low. They have worked out they can drive down demand and make individuals and communities safer by focusing on prevention for the elderly, frail and those in socially deprived communities.

The public have a different conversation with firemen and women: they put their trust in them and share their innermost fears and anxieties. The more we know about our population, the more we can prevent them coming to harm and enable them to live well and safely together.

In a new Collaboration between NHS England, NHS Improving Quality, Local Government Association, Chief Fire Of?cers Association and Public Health England, the Fire Summit, a national ambition between the health and care system and the fire service will be created, to make a difference together through holistic, safe and well assessments for older people.

Please join this tweetchat, hosted by @NHSIQ, at 8pm on Tuesday 9 June by following and including #WeComsers in your tweets. We will be exploring whether:

• similar initiatives such as Manchester Fire and Rescue services are in place elsewhere and how these are working

• if schemes such as this aren’t in place in your area, can we link people up?

• how we can share across the services, providing economy in care?

Before the chat you may want to read this blog post about how @manchesterfire link home checks with safety of older people https://nhsiq.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/everyone-loves-a-fireman/